“We’ve been playing shows in London town for 16-years now and every time we come back you make us feel like one of your own,” said Slipknot’s frontman, Corey Taylor, to the thousands of screaming fans at The SSE Arena, Wembley.
Tonight’s Prepare for Hell Tour also sees support from newcomers King 810 and legendary nu-metallers Korn. Wearing his trademark black kilt and knee-high socks, Korn’s Jonathan Davis struts around the stage with enough charisma and vocal authority to command the entire venue. Hits such as ‘Twist’ and ‘Freak on a Leash’ ensure the crowd are given enough time to work on their mosh pits, as the band deliver pulsating guitar riffs.
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The set is also full of surprises as Davis announces: “We want to do something we’ve never done before, with the help of our friends from Slipknot.” At this point the crowd goes absolutely wild, as members of Slipknot including Corey Taylor, join Korn onstage to cover ‘Sabotage’ by the Beastie Boys. The short few minutes of utter madness during the collaboration is enough to leave us truly excited for later things to come from tonight’s headliners, but a special salute certainly has to be made for for the truly exhilarating Korn.
A half an hour wait is enough time to build up anticipation in the room, but as the curtain slowly begins to rise and we’re greeted by at least half a dozen menacing masks staring back at us, we know we’re now in for one hell of a crazy night.
Opening the set with ‘XIX’ and ‘Sarcastrophe’ Corey Taylor paces across the stage and looms over the front of the crowd whilst spitting out lyrics. The complete Slipknot effect is amplified through the sheer number of people on stage simultaneously, as rising turrets on either side of the stage lift up identical sets of steel drums, for masked members to beat with drum sticks - and occasionally the odd baseball bat.
The stage setup crosses somewhere in between a circus and an asylum, where the band use clever lighting tricks in between songs to seemingly appear and disappear right in front of our eyes. Plus, fire is blasted out from cannons in time with the music during hits such as ‘The Negative One’ and ‘Before I Forget’, which is so hot you can feel it from over four blocks of seats back.
The ground floor is continually filled with mosh-pits, circle pits or crowd surfers throughout the night – you name it, it’s happening. In fact, on more than one occasion Corey Taylor takes the time to thank the crowd for giving Slipknot the “best night of the tour so far.”
But take away all the costumes, mayhem and stage tricks and you’re still left with a band that are continuing to change and push the boundaries for the metal and rock community through their music alone. Tonight proves that behind the masks, each and every member of Slipknot is a piece of art in their own right.
