Slipknot
Support from Children of Bodom and Machine Head
Hammersmith Apollo, 2nd December 2008
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Doors opened early and when we got in CoB were already playing. I'd never seen them before, and they were quite impressive if a little bit cheesy! But there's nothing wrong with a bit of cheese...
The keyboard player was quite funny to watch, playing quite technical riffs etc while managing to look completely disinterested and that he'd rather be somewhere else!
Machine Head were on next, and I was quite impressed. I'm not familiar with much of their stuff, but they're a good band, and a lot of the crowd showed up just to see them, so the atmosphere was fantastic. The drummer was pretty awesome to watch with his stick-tricks- throwing one off stage to a roadie and then catching it again!
Then the safety curtain came down, and the stage was readied for the mighty show that was coming up.
The stage setup was fantastic: Clown's drum kit, to the right of the stage, spun around, rose up and down on a scissor lift, and had video cameras and a TV screen on it. #3 had a kit on the left of the stage which tilted and spun, but didn't go up in the air because apparently he's afraid of heights! There was a walkway running along the back with lights and flamethrowers on it, which sloped towards the middle where Joey's drumkit was the centrepiece of the stage. 133 was at the rear left of the stage, and Sid was behind Clown's kit on the right. #2, Mick, Jim and Corey were at the front, doing their thing.
The show was spectacular, I've never seen Slipknot live before, so it was a crazy experience for me. Corey seemed pretty chuffed to be back in London, and did the usual frontman thing of saying "You guys were so much better than last night's crowd" etc etc which was pretty cliché but ignorable. He played off the crowd very well though, and everyone was really psyched to be there.
I'm not hugely familiar with the old stuff, I prefer Vol. 3 and All Hope Is Gone, because I think that their sound has improved massively in recent years, but I still really got into the stuff I didn't know so well, especially the "audience participation" element of Spit It Out. It's a pretty rare thing to look around the venue at a metal gig and see everyone (well, nearly everyone, there's always a few spoilsports) sat on the floor!
Speaking of audience participation, it was apalling that security didn't manage to stop one fan from rushing the stage and getting right in Corey's face, especially when you bear in mind that they weren't searching people at the door. Does nobody remember Alrosa Villa? It wasn't even four years ago... Most venues seem more concerned with stopping people from taking photos. Speaking of which, I apologise for the terrible quality of mine!