Slipknot Brings Vancouver To its Knees

Several other fans, jammed up against the barricade at the front of the pit are pleading with security to please help them get the hell out of there, as the maggots (as Slipknot affectionately refer to their fans) scream, push, and jostle for position at the front. 

Sounds crazy, doesn't it?  It is.

And Slipknot haven't even come onstage yet. 

This is just a few thousand people getting geared up while listening to a brilliantly chosen warmup song: Van Halen's "Runnin' With The Devil". 

As the song fades and lights go down, it is apparent that this room is about to completely lose its shit.

Suddenly, drummer Joey Jordison appears onstage, arms outstretched, in the hellish red glow behind his kit.  He is followed by the remaining eight members of the band, who calmly make their way across the stage to their respective spots, then stand stone still and size the crowd up.  It is an eerie sight: the new masks, while not entirely different from previous incarnations, are still as creepy as ever.  The anticipation, the buildup, the intensity: palpable.

And with that, the Coliseum turns to Hell for the next 80 minutes.

Exploding into "Sic", the song that started it all ten years ago, the stage is transformed into a chaotic, nightmarish circus.  On either side of the stage, industrial-strength drum sets with steel kegs are beaten with baseball bats as they rise, fall, and spiral around on hydraulic lifts, often with a flailing bandmember hanging off the side.   Video cameras mounted on #6's kit are wired into monitors on the front of the kit, giving the fans up front even more eye candy as the "Clown" spins round and round.  #3 has a nice bouquet of plastic flowers attached to his kit.  Guitarists, keyboard player, and bass players run amok across the stage, fingering the crowd, spitting everywhere, poking and prodding the bouncers.  At the wings of the stage, crew members juggle drumsticks, baseball bats, bottles of water, and microphones with various members who pull double shifts as vocalists or percussionists..  It's like a heavy metal Cirque De Soleil, only the athletes all look like Hollywood horror slasher goons and they're really, really pissed off.

In the midst of all this mayhem, frontman Corey Taylor (#8) is standing in the spotlight, apparently trying to turn his innards and lungs inside out onto the mic, informing...perhaps warning the poor bastards in the pit up front that he's "just begun/it's about that time/gotta get mine".

Through the course of their set, Taylor will use every known tactic to get the crowd on their feet, hands in the air, singing at the top of their lungs along to crowd-pleasers such as "Wait And Bleed", "Eyeless", "Duality" and "Disasterpiece".  It works.  They will stay on their feet and scream their heart out until he says otherwise.

 Perhaps it`s the masks that keep your attention, or just that there`s just so much going on, but it`s almost impossible to tear your eyes away from the stage.  Even to look at the oddball wearing a collared dress shirt and a bowtie in the heart of the mosh pit.  While the slightly steep admission price might be a bit much for the average Slipknot fan, the band appears to give it their best effort, and make sure they thank their "friends and family" many times for all their support over the last decade.

For a guy whose bread and butter is singing about how much he hates this accursed planet and the scum who inhabit it, Taylor is remarkably heartfelt and sincere in his between-song rants.  After a mini-tirade about "manufactured crappy pop bands", he once again thanks everyone for helping him and his band live the "strangest life they`ve ever known".  He also draws a resounding roar from the crowd when he mentions the band`s latest album "All Hope Is Gone" hitting #1 all over the world. 

Then, for no apparent reason, the lights go down, the band goes backstage, and the stage is dimly lit in a wash of blue.  Oooh..this should be exciting!

A few minutes later, they come back out and play "Vermillion".  Then, again, the lights go down and they go backstage, only to return a minute later with the jackhammering "Psychosocial", which immediately gets things mixed up in the pit again.  They keep the intensity going for one more song, then stop again.  What's up with that?  I don't know if they were having technical issues, or if they needed a lot of smoke breaks, but they seemed to thrive on killing the momentum and having to work to get everyone back into it.

Of course, with a song like "People Equal Shit", you don't have to work too hard to get the crowd back off their seats, but following it up with the sleepy "Snuff" is an odd way to end the night.  As they take yet another break, the old Slipknot logo backdrop appears over the stage.  A moment later, "Surfacing" once again turns the floor into a three-minute fight.  This would be a great song to end the night, but the band still has one more trick up its sleeve.

In a show of mass crowd control akin to making 4000 dogs sit still with Milk-Bonz on their noses, Taylor commands the crowd to get on their knees, and not move until he gives the command.  This bit has become a regular feature at the band's shows, but for the people who have only heard of it, it's pretty damn cool to see in person.  As the opening bars of "Spit It Out" reach their climax, Taylor bellows "JUMP THE F#CK UP!".

Strangely enough, nobody moves.  They all just kinda sit there and look confused.

Okay, that's a lie.  Obviously, everyone goes crazy and they mosh some more til the end of the show, as Jordison's drumset rises from its perch, turns vertical, and begins spinning around as the lights strobe in seizure-inducing bursts.  Much yelling and chanting "SLIPKNOT" ensues.  Someone barfs.  Another is looking for his shoe.  Some drunk guy leaves a drunk message of crowd noise on his friend's answering machine.  Awesome show. The end. 

There is no second-guessing or waiting for an encore: another inspired song selection, Michael Jackson's "Beat It" is a fitting soundtrack to exit the building.  As dark and sinister as Slipknot portray themselves through their music, they clearly still have a sense of humor about themselves.  And that's what separates douchebags from icons.

I have to admit: as someone who is skeptical of costumes, gimmickry and pseudo-Satanic wannabe badassery, I wasn't sure what to expect from this show.  I had never seen them.  My first introduction to the band was back in 1999 via some weekly music mag that boldly compared them to Mr. Bungle, of all things. Cool!  I picked up the album the day it came out, and raced home for a mind-blowing listening sesh.

Let me tell you: the only thing Mr. Bungle and Slipknot have in common is that they both wore costumes.  And I guess they both play instruments.  I was pissed. 

Don't get me wrong: I love the heavy stuff, but this is not what I was expecting. Just another example of how music journalists are clueless dipshits. Myself included.  Never pass judgment on a band until you've actually heard them.  That said, never compare one band to another unless you can actually back it up.

Three years later, during a three-day drive to Yellowknife in the middle of a snowstorm in a beaten-up Ford Ranger with no weatherstripping, no heater, and -44 degrees outside-plus wind chill-I decided to listen to it again.  My life had pretty much fallen apart, so I'd put my world in storage, ditched my apartment, and headed off to the icy wastelands of the Arctic to get my life back in order.

Yes, I realize just how stupid that sounds. 

As I hurtled through the frozen hell of zero visibility whiteout, tractor trailers came screaming head-on out of the blizzard, narrowly missing me, as I shivered uncontrollably.  My hands and feet ached with the unbearable pain of slow, impending frostbite.  I was sure I was going to die.  At least I had a half-decent stereo, because at that very moment, the anger and intensity of the album provided the perfect soundtrack for my horrible, hellish, frozen little existence.  I hit the accelerator and sang along to "Surfacing" like some demented, snot-nosed metal version of Jack Nicholson in "The Shining".

F*CK IT ALL! F*CK THIS WORLD!
F*CK EVERYTHING THAT YOU STAND FOR!
DON'T BELONG! DON'T EXIST!
DON'T GIVE A SHIT!
DON'T EVER JUDGE ME!

This near-psychotic release very well may be what kept me from driving off the road, or into oncoming traffic to put myself out of my misery. Or maybe I'm just saying that for the sake of this review.  Either way, something about the album resonated with a dark, hateful, hopeless little hole in my withered little soul, and I listened to it for the next two days straight, alongside the followup, "Iowa".

I never would have imagined that seven years later, I'd be rocking out at the Coliseum, WARM, rejuvenated, surrounded by maggots, while some 75-pound chick beside me screamed those exact lyrics in my ear in that high-pitched girl voice that doesn't quite work for metal. Whatever.  She was there to get it out of her system, as were the thousands of others, both on the floor and in the stands. 

I also never would have imagined that a Slipknot album would reach #1, but ten years and four albums later, the band is still evolv......er...."mutating", and their fanbase is mutating with them.