The excitement in Leeds is palpable today as Slipknot t-shirts flood Leeds city centre amongst rabid Xmas shoppers. Tonight is the hot ticket. The 25th Anniversary of Slipknot has rolled into town, and mothers and fathers take sons and daughters for this cross-generational celebration of one of the noisiest bands ever to hit the mainstream. You forget what a giant reaction there was to the first two albums and the introduction of blast beats and straight up left field darkness to the international top ten, back when people still bought albums. So, the prospect of revisiting those early days is exhilarating. Here comes the pain!
Bleed From Within almost ruined my vibe by using Shania Twain as an intro, but let’s let that go. The band get the crowd nicely warmed up with their ever-dependable brand of stomping metalcore and provokes mass clapping along, igniting a mini wall of death as the first pit forms. There’s a lot of heft here, and the sound is spot on; the band plays spotlessly, with drummer Ali Richardson sounding particularly intense. The twin vocals of Scott Kennedy and Steven Jones sound airtight and pitch perfect. The Glaswegians rip into ‘Into Nothing’ and seem to ignite, having got the enthusiastic early moshpit going. ‘Sovereign’ is introduced as “the heavy one” and fits the bill definitely as a far bigger wall of death attests. A whole arena phone light show accompanies ‘Levitate’, which is very pretty indeed. The new track, ‘In Place Of Your Hero,’ bristles with drama and great stop/start dynamics and has a darker edge with full bagpipes and a marching band crescendo. Bleed From Within leave us ‘The End Of All We Know’, not literally; that would be a terrible form for a support act. Seriously though, this was a sterling set, and their job here has been well and truly nailed.
Slipknot is freakishly feral tonight, the youthful rush of this set of Slipknot album classics is shot through with the fury of a band that’s clearly celebrating! ‘Sic’, ‘Surfacing’ and ‘Wait and Bleed’ rapid fire kick with the weight of a hundred Bruce Lee’s. Eloy Casagrande delivers so much newfound blunt force trauma in his delivery. It’s astonishing; sometimes, you feel genuinely concerned for the safety of his kit. These are tracks we know and love, but seemingly on steroids, a lot of them! This also isn’t the classic album in order. A few swings pre-date it, too, but nothing post-1999. A glowing, red-eyed Corey Taylor ensures we know this isn’t for casual Slipknot fans but for the true Maggots. ‘Get This’ sounds enormous as it flows into ‘Eeyore’ and “Slipknot hit their breakneck speed section. You forget how absolutely unhinged this album was, and they may benefit massively from not being polished after all.
This is raw Slipknot, the Slipknot that stole our hearts and all of our attention back in 99. Sid and the new samples guy both take us into a drill and bass (ask your weird friend) remix of ‘Tattered And Torn, ‘ which is a respite from the intensity of the band, believe it or not, even though it’s glitched out, and gnarly as hell. ‘Liberate’ has always been an underrated classic, and it’s great to hear it sounding this big with the might of 25 years of experience behind it. ‘Prosthetics’, in particular, is genuinely scary tonight. It always was, but with the 2024 treatment, it is unsettling. Corey asks if we would like a “deep cut”, and ‘No Life’ gets a rare airing. It sounds utterly fantastic. This is honestly the best Slipknot has been since…well…1999 actually. ‘Only One’ sees out the main set naturally with its “Only one of us walks away!” Refrain. But of course, they couldn’t leave out their biggest hits from that era, could they?
Of course not; Slipknot reappear with an incendiary ‘Spit It Out’, and everyone goes completely batshit. ‘Surfacing’ is next, and the roof is blown completely off. Slipknot ends tonight with an extended version of ‘Scissors’, which is a left-field choice, but we forget that Slipknot are a very left-field band at heart, their enduring gift to the whole world.
Review By George Miller – https://www.facebook.com/oneflamemedia
Images C/O Dan Virchow – https://www.instagram.com/danvirchow/
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