Slipknot 'unlocks fans' primal power' as mosh pit engulfs First Direct Arena
“Finally, maggots,” Corey Taylor intones, face obscured by the rotting leather carcass and dreadlocks of his mask.
“Finally, Leeds, Slipknot is back in motherf***ing England tonight!” A wall of sound greets him like a wave, cresting from the rafters and down to the lip of the stage where he crouches on a monitor.
“Tonight,” he continues. “We’re going to take you back to 1999. You will not hear one song after that!” There is a brief pause as he surveys his kingdom, before he gives a shoulder-shrug. “For the casual fan, sorry. But for everyone else, welcome back to the beginning!”
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The singer is as good as his word - at this kick-off show for a winter leg that wraps up the Iowa band’s anniversary celebrations, there is no material that postdates their incendiary debut effort at all, instead offering a full-throated celebration of their self-titled first album.
Nostalgia is a drug that has captured many of their heavy music contemporaries before, but few have committed to such a singular approach as to neglect their other glory days as this one.
It is a testament to the influence and reach their record had on the scene that a sell-out crowd is spilling out of their seats before Sid Wilson has even so much as scratched his turntables once. A quarter-century later, these nu-metal thrash anthems still sound urgently abrasive with a brutal thrill behind them; though Slipknot have evolved over the intervening years, this return to ground zero appears to have unlocked a primal power among their fans.
Smartly, Taylor and the rest - alongside Wilson, three original members remain in percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan and guitarists Mick Thomson and Jim Root - elect to deliver the album out of sequence, in order to spread the love.
It means that this ruthlessly svelte show - at eighty minutes, it clocks in firmly on the lower end of enormo-dome standards - is never more than a few cuts away from utter pandemonium, be it the frenetic flow of Eyeless or a terrific Wait and Bleed . Amid the relentless aural assault, Prosthetics proves a bruisingly melodic highlight as they dive deeper and deeper.
“This island will always feel like home to us,” Taylor intones late on, his transatlantic accent at almost comical odds with the uniform red-boiler suit attire they sport. “We will never forget that.”
As Spit it Out triggers a brutal final quarter-hour stretch, yet another pit threatens to engulf the entire floor. As long as Slipknot keep returning to the well, it seems that their devotees won’t forget them too.
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