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<\/p>\nBy Christopher David<\/p>\n
Even in the diverse world of musical genres and subgenres, attaining mainstream respect can still be a dicey prospect for a metal band. Metal is still considered the outlaw\u2019s music, in many ways, and mainstream success can be an unforeseen blessing\u2014bigger shows, wider reach, more album sales\u2014or a curse with cries of \u2018sellout\u2019 attached. Rare is the band that achieves the former, but doesn\u2019t see the latter. Slipknot is perhaps the last band standing in the unique position of having massive mainstream success (dare I say, respect) at a level most bands never see and also dodging the sellout conversation at nearly every turn.<\/p>\n
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The reviews were in for new album We Are Not Your Kind<\/em> before their stop in Tinley Park on Sunday as part of their \u201cKnotfest Roadshow\u201d tour, and the reviews were universally positive, with critics largely hailing it as a masterpiece or a giant leap forward in terms of focus and maturity. (It is both of those things and much more.) But in light of that, if the band felt the need to prove itself, they didn\u2019t show it in the blistering ninety minute set that pulled largely from their back catalog while hitting some brand-new hotspots. Mainly because the only audience Slipknot clearly feels the need to prove themselves to is\u2026themselves.<\/p>\n Taking the brightly lit stage to Iowa classic \u201cPeople = Shit,\u201d vocalist Corey Taylor had the crowd in the palm of his fist within about thirty seconds, and it never let up from there. One of the most dynamic, relentless frontmen in popular music, Taylor took a few minutes here and there to reflect on Slipknot\u2019s twenty year career in visiting Chicago.<\/p>\n \u201cThis city is so close to our home that it feels like home to us,\u201d he remarked at one point, and it\u2019s not hard to believe. Cutting their teeth across the Midwest for their first few years before coming to dominate the American metal scene with the release of 2001\u2019s Iowa<\/em>, Slipknot have played Chicago more times than this reviewer can count over the years, though Sunday\u2019s show felt like an elevated moment even when measured against that history. New songs \u201cUnsainted\u201d and \u201cAll-Out Life\u201d went over like wildfire and felt like they\u2019d been the set for years, and the live debut of new album closer \u201cSolway Firth\u201dwas one of the most savage moments of the night, with guitarists Jim Root and Mick Thomson trading understated, creepy licks before each bombastic chorus.<\/p>\n In the few years since the last tour, percussionist Chris Fehn was ousted, and in his place, a mystery member referred to in jest by the fans as \u201ctorilla man\u201d has stepped in, filling that spot on the kettle drum riser quite well while wearing a mask that appears to be made of tanned, stitched flesh. The band\u2019s new look\u2014white, inmate jumpsuits and some of the more disturbing masks in their history\u2014made the visual element of the show that much more exciting.<\/p>\n DJ Sid Wilson (#0) danced and cavorted about the stage as usual, but his outfit this time around – a boxer\u2019s robe and a mask that looks like the hollowed out face of an old man, with creepy articulation of the eyes and mouth – was off-putting in the best way. The staging is the band\u2019s most ambitious yet, with video screens that wrapped around the drum risers, backdrop, and overhead canopy of the stage (even the kettle drums on both Tortilla Man and Clown\u2019s risers had video screen overlays, which made for some suitably trippy moments during slower burns like \u201cVermilion\u201d and \u201cThe Devil in I\u201d).<\/p>\n The band dipped into 2009\u2019s All Hope is Gone<\/em> for \u201cSulfur,\u201d one of Slipknot\u2019s most underrated singles, before diving into an amphitheater-sized singalong of \u201cDuality,\u201d arguably the band\u2019s biggest hit. A paean to coping\u2014successfully or otherwise\u2014with the lunacy of one\u2019s everyday life, the song has never felt more relatable, given the current state of the union. If the barely contained rage spilling off the stage has ever had a more fitting context, I don\u2019t know what it would have been.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s an unexplainable one,\u201d Taylor roars in the chorus to the aforementioned \u201cSolway Firth,\u201d and it\u2019s an apt summation of Slipknot\u2019s career. Nine guys in creepy masks from Des Moines, conquering the world with some of the angriest, most violent, politically and emotionally charged metal the genre has ever seen, and in the process, becoming one of the best live bands to ever draw upwards of 20,000 people a night. If you\u2019re smart, you\u2019ll be in that number next time they come through: Slipknot\u2019s position as one of the best and most important bands in heavy metal has been solidified, if it was ever in question to begin with.<\/p>\n For more on Slipknot, click here<\/a><\/p>\n For more on Knotfest, click here<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Knotfest-Slipknot-Hollywood-Casino-Amphitheatre-Tinley-Park-Chicago-08-11-19-6-1024x683.jpg\")
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