Slipknot brought their circus of horrors back to the UK for the first time since headlining Download festival last year. And “big tops” don’t come much bigger than London’s O2 Arena.
We were late arriving to the O2 as we were preoccupied with shots at wetherspoons (if you’ve read my While She Sleeps blog then you may be noticing a pattern here) but it was all worth it when we arrived as a foyer full of metalheads in jumpsuits and a gang of goths dining at chiquito was a sight to behold.
We entered the arena with moments to spare and after passing a fallen pit warrior with his nose at a right-angle across his face and a shirt stained with blood, it was clear this was going to be a rowdy gig. The curtain lifted and the Slipknot spectacle began with ‘Unsainted’ and ‘Disasterpiece’ followed by ‘Eeyore’, a rarity from the 1999 self-titled album. Front man, Corey Taylor, made a nostalgic callback asking if anyone in the crowd was at their first London show at the Astoria 21 years ago. About half of the 18,000 strong crowd cheered despite it being clear they weren’t all there.
It’s impressive how well Slipknot appeals as well to older fans, who may well have been at that legendary Astoria show, as they do to their younger audience. The latter used their youth to their advantage as ‘Nero Forte’ caused circle pits to open up like human whirlpools. The chaos continued with a mix of classics such as ‘Psychosocial’ and ‘Vermilion’ along with ‘solway firth’ from the 2019 number one album ‘We Are Not Your Kind’. “You guys got mad at us for not playing this song at Download” triggered a guessing game as to what song it would be. The answer? ‘Wait and Bleed’! They went straight into ‘Eyeless’ after that which, despite feeling fatigued by this point, was impossible not to lose your shit to. It’s hard to resist a mosh with the band going as hard as they did for these two songs accompanied of course by tortilla man and Sid’s dance moves. It was a surprise there was no ‘spit it out’ this time round and also disappointing not to hear anything at allfrom ‘The Gray Chapter’.
Despite this, the show acted as a great teaser of what might be in store for us this summer as Slipknot bring Knotfest to the UK for the very first time. I predict they will go bigger than ever before on their own terms. More pyro and bass guitar flamethrowers will be very welcome.
Edit- Slipknot were not bigger and better than ever before at Knotfest because an unprecedented global pandemic cancelled it.
The Birdbox 