(Still) Down with The Sickness: Disturbed Brings a Nu-Metal Circus to the Moda

Pyrotechnics, pajama pants, and primal screams: Disturbed celebrates 25 years of their iconic debut album with theatrical flair and unapologetic nostalgia. Words by Bren Swogger. Photos by @britt_bowman via band’s Facebook.

Am I here partially ironically because Daughtry is opening? Sure. (I say “ironically” as if I didn’t have It’s Not Over downloaded on my Zune in middle school. Oops.) But I’m also here because nu-metal is my guilty pleasure. It’s the trash cinema of the metal world—critically reviled, endlessly mocked, but gloriously fun. Like a B-movie on repeat, I eat it up. Unironically.

I missed Korn when they came through last October, so I wasn’t about to let another 2000s titan pass me by. Disturbed—arguably better than Korn, fight me—are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their debut album The Sickness, and they’re doing it in full spectacle mode.

The Moda Center crowd was… an experience. A strange brew of middle-aged Daughtry moms, grizzled metal dads, and teens in basketball shorts and purple hair dye. There was a guy in pajamas. It was less like a traditional metal crowd and more like the Walmart of humanity—chaotic, eclectic, and oddly wholesome in its own way.

After the first opener Nothing More (more Fall Out Boy than nu-metal, honestly), Daughtry took the stage and time-warped us back to 2006. One mom literally sprinted to her seat yelling, “I don’t want to miss Daughtry! He’s going on next!” And hey, credit where it’s due—the man still has a killer voice. His newer hard rock tracks felt like a better fit alongside Disturbed, but he gave the moms what they came for: a stripped-down version of Home and a full-throttle It’s Not Over (it is Mother’s Day weekend, after all).

Then, as if to warn us we were about to go Back to the Future, Huey Lewis and the News’ “Back in Time” played over the speakers. A tonal shift so abrupt it bordered on comedy—but also a weirdly perfect cue for what came next.

Disturbed’s lead singer David Draiman was wheeled out onstage like Hannibal Lecter, strapped to a dolly in full asylum-core. The second they launched into Voices, the energy in the room exploded. From there, they ripped through The Sickness front to back, with enough pyro to make your eyebrows flinch. Draiman, mythic as ever, stalked the stage like a metal messiah—calm, controlled, but with vocals that tore through the air like a chainsaw to the spine.

By the time they hit Stupify, the whole arena was on its feet, bathed in the glow of fire and nostalgia. During Fear, the pit transformed into a human demolition derby. And for the closing track of the set, Meaning of Life, Draiman was wheeled back out—now in an orange jumpsuit, strapped to an electric chair and “executed” onstage. Covered in blood, the band reappeared in matching jumpsuits and finished the set with a burst of madness, Draiman’s villainous laugh echoing through the stadium like a nu-metal Vincent Price.

After a brief (but much-needed) intermission, they returned for a greatest hits set—Indestructible, Inside the Fire, Ten Thousand Fists, and more. Though their newer material leans less into nu-metal and more toward arena rock, it’s that early-2000s chaos that truly lit up the night.

Nu-metal may never earn critical acclaim, but in a room packed with people screaming “Ooh-wah-ah-ah-ah!” like it’s a sacred rite, there’s no denying its power. It’s messy. It’s theatrical. It’s pure, nostalgic catharsis. And Disturbed still knows exactly how to deliver it.