By Christopher David<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the biggest crowd we\u2019ve played to on this entire tour,\u201d Slipknot vocalist Corey Taylor\u00a0remarked halfway through the band\u2019s Chicago stop on the \u201cSummer\u2019s Last Stand\u201d tour Saturday\u00a0night. \u201cAnd I am so proud that it\u2019s here in the Midwest.\u201d Bands give shootouts\u00a0to cities all the\u00a0time from the stage; it\u2019s a time-honored\u00a0tradition of making the place you\u2019re playing that night\u00a0feel special. In Slipknot\u2019s case, though, the members of the 20,000+ crowd could be sure that\u00a0Taylor meant what he said. Iowa\u2019s most successful rock band, signed in Chicago? The\u00a0midwest is where Slipknot\u2019s dark, nine chambered\u00a0heart beats, so it was pretty much a\u00a0guarantee that \u201cThe Nine\u201d would level the place. Which they did.<\/p>\n
Whether or not Slipknot would even continue to be a functioning entity was a question just a few\u00a0short years ago. Side projects and the unexpected death of bassist Paul Gray left the band\u2019s\u00a0future uncertain, and only when they emerged in 2014 with their much anticipated\u00a0fifth album, .5: The GrayChapter, did the metal world breathe a collective sigh of relief. Combining all of\u00a0the best elements of what Slipknot do best anthemic,\u00a0melodic choruses stuffed into a Sherman\u00a0tank of percussion and guitars layered so thick they nearly do physical damage to the listener the\u00a0album\u2019s best material fit beautifully into the band\u2019s canon, reaffirming their position as\u00a0unlikely titans of the rock world.<\/p>\n
But of course, like all great bands, Slipknot lives onstage, and the Prepare For Hell tour is a\u00a0flashy, underworld circus of light and mayhem, which is nearly unavoidable when you have nine\u00a0people on the stage. Ram\u2019s heads adorn rotating platforms where percussionists Shawn\u00a0Crahan, aka \u201cClown\u201d (#6) and Chris Fehn (#3) bang on kettle drums and metal kegs with\u00a0baseball bats and sticks. A giant demongoat\u00a0head grinned with evil affectation at the crowd\u00a0from over the elevated walkways; there was enough fire blasting from the floor to make KISS\u00a0jealous as guitarists Jim Root (#4) and Mick Thomson (#7) annihilated their way through\u00a0classics like \u201cWait and Bleed,\u201d \u201cVermilion,\u201d \u201cBefore I Forget,\u201d and \u201cDisasterpiece.\u201d The setlist\u00a0offered satisfaction for fans of every Slipknot record, a near perfect\u00a0balance of new and old,\u00a0brooding and ferocious, and Gray Chapter tracks like \u201cKillpop,\u201d \u201cAOV,\u201d and opener\u00a0\u201cSarcastrophe\u201d sound as though they\u2019ve been road tested\u00a0for much longer than the year that the\u00a0band has actually been playing them. Crahan has often remarked that Slipknot shows are a\u00a0living embodiment of chaos, and seeing the members of the band thrash about the stage,\u00a0sometimes crashing into each other, jumping and hanging from the risers, only confirmed that\u00a0viewpoint. Clearly buoyed by a crowd that could only be described as frenzied, the 123\u00a0encore punch of \u201c(sic),\u201d \u201cPeople = Shit,\u201d and \u201cSurfacing\u201d took the last bit of energy from just\u00a0about everyone in the house, though there was a sense that the crowd would have stayed for as long as the band was willing to play.\u00a0\u201cHow many of you have seen Slipknot before?\u201d Taylor asked at the end of the set, to a joyful\u00a0roar, followed by a second question.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow many of you are seeing us for the first time?\u201d The\u00a0roar this time was bigger, and you could almost sense the smile beneath Taylor\u2019s latex mask.\u00a0\u201cLook around you. This is your heavy metal family. People want to say rock is dead? I say fuck\u00a0you.\u201d And the heavy metal family agreed as the band tore into \u201cSpit it Out\u201d from their 1999\u00a0debut album. Slipknot\u2019s heart and home will always be in the midwest, and when they next\u00a0return which,\u00a0hopefully, will be sooner than later you\u00a0can bet that the family will be there.<\/p>\n
For Photo Gallery of the show, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n