Recently I saw the nu-metal bands Slipknot and Korn perform at Wembley Arena in London, and it was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! I was so glad to get the tickets, as I tried to get them on the two presales and general sale at 9:00 when they came out and couldn’t get any because they sold out too quickly. Luckily I was able to buy them off a really nice guy from Twitter who sold me them for around face value. Hooray!
Slipknot and Korn are two bands which I’d been wanting to see for a while, so seeing them at the same show was great. King 810 were also a support act, performing before Korn, but I don’t really like them much and they don’t compare at all to the other acts. Anyway, I didn’t get to see them as it took so long for us to be let in, but I just caught Korn as they started.
They played:
1. Twist
2. Here To Stay
3. Right Now
4. Love & Meth
5. Falling Away From Me
6. Good God
7. Hater
8. Shoots And Ladders
9. Got The Life
10. Freak On A Leash
11. Sabotage (Beastie Boys Cover with Slipknot)
12. Blind
It was a great set, and they played really impressively live. I really loved seeing Jonathan Davis playing the bagpipes during ‘Shoots And Ladders’, and they also played some of my favourite songs from their new album, ‘Love & Meth’ and ‘Hater’. The crowd got really excited as soon as ‘Freak On A Leash’ started playing, and I couldn’t help but remember that my favourite singer, Amy Lee of Evanescence, had once performed the song with Korn.
People were really happy when Korn and Slipknot covered Beastie Boys’ ‘Sabotage’ together, although I personally didn’t know the song well which made it a tad less enjoyable. ‘Twas a great performance though. Korn posted a video of it on their Youtube channel:
Then we all waited for Slipknot, and spoke to the people next to us who were really nice. During Korn, someone offered to carry the person I was with, Kirsten, (who is quite short) on their shoulders for a song. Lucky her! She managed to speak to many people there and had lots of people asking her for her number. The person talking to Kirsten asked for my name after a while, thought I said ‘Bobby’ rather than ‘Poppy,’ and when I corrected him he said “Ohhh, I thought you might be transgender.” Good times.
Lots of people were smoking, and the staff at Wembley were trying to find them to prevent them from doing it. Other people were clearly on drugs or drunk, and there were two people behind us pretending to tie up their shoelaces and instead snorting cocaine. Interesting.
Slipknot were about to come on, and the crowd sang along to ‘XIX’ which built up the atmosphere and anticipation.
As soon as the first song, ‘Scarcastrophe’, came on, I lost Kirsten in a mosh pit and didn’t see her for the rest of the show. The crowd was immense, and I finally got to experience a good mosh pit – there were people moshing in every direction and I couldn’t see past it. It was great!
The setlist was:
1. Scarcatrophe
2. The Heretic Anthem
3. My Plague
4. The Devil In I
5. Psychosocial
6. The Negative One
7. Three Nil
8. Eyeless
9. Vermilion
10. Before I forget
11. Duality
12. Wait And Bleed
13. Spit It Out
14. Custer
Encore:
15. (sic)
16. People = Shit
17. Surfacing
Slipknot performed their songs with so much energy and the audience kept moving around. It’s always great listening to some of your favourite musicians live and singing along with other fans.
It was amazing experiencing the song ‘Spit It Out,’ which I’d been anticipating due to Slipknot’s well known “Jump the fuck up” part when they perform it live. They ask the crowd to get down on the ground and jump up when Corey Taylor says so. It was so much fun.
So I came out of the concert covered in people’s sweat, and beer which people had been throwing around. I couldn’t find Kirsten and had looked after her phone so had no method of contacting her. Oops. Anyways, when I found her she was with some people we’d spoken to earlier and one of them thought he had broken his ribs during a mosh pit in ‘Custer.’ Ouch.
It was a brilliant concert, and I would love to see Slipknot perform again at some point. I also recently bought myself tickets to see Korn again this year for their 2oth Anniversary London show. Exciting!
Pure Destruction 