LIVE FROM THE PIT: Godsmack, P.O.D. and Drowning Pool

Do you remember 2002? You probably don’t. Conflict raged across the globe, the Euro was introduced, the recession carried on, and the film The Scorpion King released in theatres. “What does that have to do with anything?” you scream. Because, my dear reader, EVERYTHING matters. Especially when the first three tracks of The Scorpion King’s soundtrack were the zeitgeist’s soundtrack to a civilization unravelling; GODSMACK, P.O.D., and DROWNING POOL. If you were a moody adolescent in the early aughts, these bands were your gospel, therapy, and a war cry rolled into one. And no matter how much derision this nü-metal burrito generated, it is still undeniably iconic to its age. 

But now it’s 2025, and somehow the wheels of hell still grind on. Conflict continues to choke the world, late-stage capitalism eats itself, and Dwayne “The Eternal Franchise” Johnson seems to be in every film that comes out now. And yet, at the Hammersmith Apollo, it is time to witness the second coming of The Scorpion King alum. Drowning Pool, whom you might know best from their tenure as the music for early YouTube top 10 lists, dealt with the tragic loss of original vocalist Dave Williams soon after their first album, Sinner. After a rotating lineup of vocalists, they seem to have finally settled on Ryan McCombs of Soil fame.

P.O.D. have the honour of being the first overtly Christian band Out Of Rage has ever covered. Their latest offering, Veritas, was released to both acclaim and derision, with the main criticism being a lack of diversity in sound. But through it all, they still deliver some of the hardest rap-metal in the game. As for Godsmack, they have had quite a strange time of late. Just as the band marks their 30th year of existence, longtime guitarist Tony Rombola and drummer Shannon Larkin have exited stage left, handing the reins temporarily to Will Hunt and Sam Bam Koltun as drummer and guitarist respectively. It may not be 2002 anymore, and they may have only two permanent members as of writing, but Godsmack still powers through it all.

One look at the crowd at the Apollo and you’re struck by the realization that nü-metal peaked 23 years ago now. There may be similar recession conditions in the world right now, but it seems that the passage of time has left certain nü-metal aesthetics in the dust. They don’t care. The vibe tonight is aggressively pre-2005. No irony. No shame. Just faded JNCO denim and backward baseball caps. Even the Zoomer contingent showed up in their full Fred Durst best. It’s moving in the way a derelict Blockbuster is moving: haunted, dilapidated, and strangely sincere, making you yearn for those years gone by.

Drowning Pool

The lights dim, and Drowning Pool bursts onto the stage in a pulse-pounding rendition of ‘Sinner’ and it quickly becomes apparent why Ryan McCombs is their frontman as he is doing an absolutely phenomenal job. Tenured and ready to kill, he approaches the songs like a bear to a small animal, with his raspy voice giving the songs all the energy and aggression of a Waffle House after hours. And yet, the crowd hardly moves. Maybe it’s the grim spectre of Monday night, it could also be that their joints don’t move like they did back in the early 2000s. Either way, there’s a hope that their newly announced headliner show in November with Spineshank does not have the same effect. They delve into songs like solipsist anthem for the lonely lunch-table gang ‘Tear Away’ and their solid cover of Billy Idol’s ‘Rebel Yell.’ But what it takes to finally wake the sleeping crowd is that one sentence that hyped-up teenagers everywhere; “let the bodies hit the floor.” And just like that,

Pandora's box is kicked open. With a single utterance, a mosh-pit, nay, a maelstrom forms in the crowd so great and so terrible that it makes Moses’ wave look like a paddling pool. ‘Bodies’ are lost in the mighty vortex. And it feels like before you can count to four (nothing wrong with me), it’s all over. Their work here is done, and the crowd who were once asleep are now fearlessly awakened.

Coming on with Morricone’s Fistful Of Dollars theme, P.O.D. practically leap onto their instruments. Their backdrop is horrifying, the cover for Veritas, it looks like a jump-scare from an indie game some let’s player overreacts to, and creates an unholy pall over the set. Fittingly opening with ‘Boom,’ the crowd continues to jolt around in electric bliss, pogoing and moshing to the proselytising pandemonium. Ever the humble group, they claim they are just “here to warm you guys up.” The crowd disagrees loudly, die-hards scream along to numbers like ‘Southtown’ and mega-hit ‘Youth of the Nation’ as if their lives depend on it.

P.O.D.

And when they leave the stage, the dust doesn’t settle. It hangs there, thick and shimmering, like the residue of something momentary. Two acts down, both leaving the stage scorched, while the crowd, now fully resurrected, is left frothing for more.

With a loud AC/DC anthem to start things off, Mix Master Mike of Beastie Boys fame appears in a canned music video where he disc-jockeys various rock classics. The first in a long line of “what the actual hell” moments. But this isn’t your dad’s Godsmack show (actually it is and he’s probably in the pit somewhere), for a camera crew shadows their every move - the whole affair being gloriously projected onto a giant TV behind the band. Like watching a rock show while also watching the behind-the-scenes documentary about the rock show. Meta. They galavant into ‘Surrender’ and frontman Sully Erna bounds onstage with the wide-eyed joy of a man who’s had his Weetabix. He is all smiles. ‘You And I’ kicks in with a backdrop of a slowed-down strip show, not so much erotic as it is deeply unsettling, about as sexy as going to the strip club with your dad, it falls pretty flat. The band continues to go backwards chronologically through 30 years of their catalogue for their set, a clever idea, following up with some sincerely goofy jalopy compilation footage for ‘1000hp’ and Sully breaking out the tough-guy voice for angst anthem ‘Cryin’ like a Bitch.’ Yet he ultimately comes across as intimidating as a teddy bear for the whole affair. Somehow, this only makes the performance more endearing.

Both Will and Sam show off their skills, and bring enough energy to get the crowd pogoing the night away whilst longtime bassist Robbie Merrill rumbles low like an underground train. Before breaking out the special reserve, Sully engages in a heartfelt speech with the crowd. “No matter how good the footage is,” he says, “you will never be able to recreate the experience with a computer screen!” The conviction in his voice is genuine as he holds his Frankenstein guitar in his hands, he makes sure to mention it’s the same guitar he’s had practically his whole life that composed his first Godsmack song. The audience is moved. It’s an act of genuine emotion rare to see these days. The crowd exhales as one. The connection between fan and band is potent here. They’re survivors of a shared cultural trauma known as the early 2000s. Touching.

‘Awake’ is their greatest performance of the night, with pulsing lights rendering the Apollo into a planetarium. ‘Keep Away’ features the girl from the self-titled album cover robotically oscillating to the music thanks to the distractingly creepy power of AI. It is a misstep for the band and audience members are heard post-show deriding it as “weird” and “stupid that they’re using AI in the first place” which is hard to disagree with. ‘Voodoo’ then galvanises everyone into one giant tribal post-grunge snake cult, as it has the tendency to do. There’s a drum battle between Will and Sully that goes on for far too long but features some very impressive chops from both. Then they leave the stage in the most egregious act of heavy metal peek-a-boo yet before sallying out for three more songs. ‘Under your Scars’ is a heartfelt tribute to the fallen, with Sully breaking out the piano for the occasion, proving he can play literally everything. By the time ‘I Stand Alone’ comes in all of its Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within glory, the mosh-pit has gone large human-whirlpool mode once again. And as if summoned by some arcane spell from the bowels of 2002, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, The Scorpion King himself, appears on screen, throwing Sully a sword. And then it’s over. The band takes a picture. The house lights rise. The people shuffle out, sweat-slicken and pulverized. Godsmack have staged a show that is part rock concert, part seminar, and part wake for an era that refuses to stay dead which leaves you wondering; “what the hell just happened?”

There is much to be said about the bands performing tonight. They feel like bands out of time. There’s a peculiar dignity in watching bands claw their way through the quicksand of cultural obsolescence. Godsmack have embraced this with a gallows-theatre bravado that permeates their performance; tasteless AI backdrops, uncanny projections of cultural bric-a-brac, and Sully dressed like a sleazy Italian director in some macabre Lynchian fever-dream of a video backdrop. In a world where everything's ironic and not caring is the new cool, sincerity feels like a unicorn’s horn. Just drop the AI crap first. They’ve spent decades being dismissed as Alice In Chains knockoffs, but this reputation is dishonest and wholly inaccurate. The truth is simpler and far less insulting; Godsmack wear their influences on their wrist, is all.

Yet in the end, they shockingly don’t seem to reach the heights of their opening acts, .P.O.D. and Drowning Pool are grinding it out in their own ring corner of the metal ecosystem, lifers at this point, dealing out the bangers with those for ears to hear them. And that, perhaps, is the whole damn thesis: it’s not about reinvention. It’s about survival. Reinvention is for sellouts and influencers. These bands aren’t trying to stay relevant, they’re just trying to stay alive. It is precisely that kind of stubbornness that’s practically revolutionary in this day and age. But pedantry be damned, these guys can and still put on a hell of a live show. Crowds eat it up and sometimes it’s sweet to remember those times, when everything seemed to make sense.

For now, they stand alone.

Words: Kiarash Golshani

Photos: Ben Blisset