SLIPKNOT – Oslo – Oslo Spektrum

Back with a lot of energy!!

Oslo’s Spektrum Scene has opened its dors rather early on Tuesday evening and Slipknot’s support band, Kind 180, has started their show sometime around 7:30 PM. I missed the beginning of the show, but I got there just in time to hear the singer saying few words and apologising that he can’t do the best job ever as he is very sick. You could totally hear that in his spoken words, not so much in the harsh vocals used during the show though. But kudos that he tried and probably gave as much as he could, and I am still under the impression that they finished earlier than planned. But it’s probably not easy to play such aggressive music with a soar throat and fever.

A big curtain fell down and the minions started setting up the stage for Slipknot’s show. I saw them many years ago at a festival and I didn’t expect anything in particular from their show in Oslo. But I was curious to see how they behave live after all the unfortunate events in the band’s life during the past years. The curtain was still down and you could hear the soundcheck and I kept wondering where the strange hitting-a-barrel like noises were coming from. The mistery was solved once the curtain got lifted and you could see two extra drumkits on each side of the stage, drumkits made of barrels and huge toms tied together, all set up on a round platform that could spin and lift up in the air. Each of the drumkit was equipped with an ‘à la Slipknot’ looking drummer (and a goat head attached to it).

Besides the two interesting appearances, and besides the regular singer, 2 guitars a bass and a drummer, there were two more dudes in the background, one playing keyboards and one apparently playing the turntable (and looking like the Pinhead). Plus the whole stage was quite a sight, having a tall platform behind the drums, reachable by two set of stairs. On top of it there was a huge mirross and above that a huge goat head. And two skeletons on each side – drawn as on the album. This platform used as a lanuching point for the keyboard player who was pretty much the most restless dude on the stage. He was dancing, running, jumping, climbing the stairs, climbing on the two drumkits, and so on and so on. It’s a wonder he’s still in one piece if he’s doing that at every show.

The sound was not the highlight of the evening, nor was the current drummer who didn’t seem to have any groove. But luckily the two extra drummers compensated for that and even helped at certian parts by wearing fanfare like drums around their necks and keeping the rhythm like that. Or, occasionally, one of them took a baseball bat and kicked the barrels of this drumkit. And kept throwing drumsticks at the audience. They must be carrying many kilos of drumkits with them.

Musical wise I don’t find anything extraordinary for my taste, but the show is totaly fit for the choice they made in music. The lights and the pyro effects were well planned and well executed. And while I am not the biggest fan of the music, Corey’s voice is a different story. He can sing and every range of sounds is quite pleasant to hear. He can even rap at times. And he was kind enough to thank the audience several times and even if he used the cliché phrases like ‘this is one of my favourite cities to play in’ and so on, he did it well enough to receive big cheers for his words. He even managed to get some moshpits and crowdsurfing as reactions and the part when he asked people to sit and then jump da fuck up when he says so is still a nicely working trick.

There was plenty of new material, but I was happy to hear a couple of familiar tunes from the ‘old days’. The backing vocals were sung/screamed by either one or both of the two extra drummers and that worked rather nice I’d say. Due the bad sound I didn’t find anything impressive about the guitars, but I remember clearly the bass having either green or red lights on its neck during two of the songs. Not sure I liked that, but the running guy always distracts you from such details.

It was a lot of good energy out there. Somehow ‘everyone for himself’ kind of show, but they might not have time for interactions in all the choreography that they have put together. Nice to see the reaction of the crowd and to hear so many people singing or to see so many hands up in the air. So kudos to Slipknot for achieving this and it would be interesting to watch their development in the future – they actually said several times that they’ll be back. So let’s see what that means.