Slipknot with Lamb of God August 28, MGM Resorts Village.
For a band with a hit song titled “People = Sh*t,” Slipknot is remarkably friendly. The nine-member metal band spent much of this past Friday night’s concert emphasizing its close bond with its fans (affectionately known as “maggots”), and the fans returned the love enthusiastically. Singer Corey Taylor called them his “heavy metal f*cking family” (after noting that he has actual family in Las Vegas), and during “Spit It Out,” he managed to convince nearly every one of them to crouch down on the concrete ground of the MGM Resorts Village and jump back up on his command. “On my signal, unleash hell,” he instructed, but what was unleashed was more joyous than hellish.
The band’s stage setup did look a bit like it was playing in hell, with so much pyro that sometimes there were just slowly burning fires all around the stage. With its ghoulish masks and matching black jumpsuits, Slipknot has always been theatrical, and the show had a twisted funhouse atmosphere. Percussionists Shawn Crahan and Chris Fehn towered above the stage on risers that spun around, and a grinning goat skull looked down on the band from the back of the stage.
Musically, the nine members demonstrated how dense a sound they can create when playing in unison (guitarists Mick Thomson and Jim Root sounded especially strong), with a setlist that stretched from the band’s self-titled 1999 debut to last year’s .5: The Gray Chapter. Anthemic hits “Psychosocial,” “Wait and Bleed” and “Duality” got the crowd going, but fans were equally responsive to older album tracks like “(Sic)” and “Surfacing,” which opened and closed the encore (Taylor referred to the latter as “your national anthem”). Taylor’s talk of family might have sounded to some like platitudes, but the fans clearly felt the same way.
Earlier in the evening, Virginia metal band Lamb of God delivered a less theatrical but no less intense 50-minute set, and the crowd was just as receptive. Singer Randy Blythe dedicated “Ruin” to “those poor f*cking bastards that have to get up after us in this heat,” but the weather didn’t do much to slow either band down. Even in the fires of hell, it helps to be among friends.
Slipknot setlist:
“Sarcastrophe”
“The Heretic Anthem”
“Psychosocial”
“The Devil in I”
“AOV”
“Vermilion”
“Wait and Bleed”
“Killpop”
“Before I Forget”
“Sulfur”
“Duality”
“Disasterpiece”
“Spit It Out”
“Custer”
Encore:
“(Sic)”
“People = Sh*t”
“Surfacing”