Slipknot brings loud and rowdy roadshow to Canada Life Centre

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This article was published 11/04/2022 (1273 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The mosh pit is alive and well.

On Monday night — after two years of pandemic-era social distancing — concertgoers at Canada Life Centre appeared more than happy to thrash along to the loud, high-energy refrains of American heavy metal outfit, Slipknot, and their touring companions. The floor was a sea of flailing limbs, devil horns and consensual shoving during much of the four and a half hour concert.

Sure, Slipknot can be enjoyed from the comfort of home, but the band is built for the stage. Dark theatrics are a mainstay for the nine-piece and Monday’s show skimped on neither showmanship nor fireballs.

Band members, wearing their signature horror movie-esque masks, spent two hours headbanging across the multi-tiered stage and pumping up the crowd with profanity-laced interludes. Pyrotechnics, fireworks and cannons lit up the venue, accompanied by a wall of colourful, shapeshifting videos.

The local appearance was part of the first leg of the Knotfest Roadshow, which is winding its way through North America until June. Slipknot launched Knotfest as a two-day outdoor music festival in 2012; the concept has since grown into an annual phenomenon with festivals and arena shows around the globe.

Knotfest was set to touch down in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus this year, but the band announced in March those shows would be postponed amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Jinjer, a metal band from Donetsk, was slated to open the tour but pulled out due to the war. Their absence was noted several times, including by Slipknot lead vocalist Corey Taylor, who pledged to return to Winnipeg with Jinjer in tow once the conflict is resolved.

Knotfest openers got the audience of an estimated 5,000 people sufficiently riled during two hour-long sets full of growling vocals, heady guitar riffs and aggressive drumming.

Wage War, a metalcore group from Florida, performed in all-black with minimal set dressing, save for a swirling light show. California alt-metal band In This Moment, on the other hand, provided some aesthetic foreshadowing for the main attraction. Frontwoman Maria Brink spent much of the witchy performance scream-singing from a raised platform while her cloaked, face-painted band and backup dancers circled below. The set combined all the basic elements of a metal show (and then some): multiple costume changes, smoke guns, wind machines, sirens, pentagrams, flashing lights, references to human sacrifice, balloons and copious synchronized headbanging. It was over the top, and that was the point.

Unfortunately, with much production value comes much waiting around. Stage turnover broke up the show with two lengthy intermissions totalling nearly an hour. Still, the weeknight audience managed to keep most of its energy despite a squirrely 45-minute wait for the headline act.

The mosh pit re-animated almost as soon as the curtain dropped, but the pace continued haltingly thanks to frequent breaks between songs. At one point the band stopped entirely to alert paramedics to a crowd member who had fallen in the pit — a sign of musicians who have learned a thing or two about how to throw a wild, yet safe, party over the last 23 years.

Formed in Des Moines, Iowa, Slipknot rose to prominence in the late ’90s and has, so far, released nine studio albums (though, Taylor teased a forthcoming record during the show). Monday’s setlist was a raucous journey through the band’s extensive discography peppered with nostalgic mega hits — like Wait and Bleed, from their first self-titled album — alongside tracks, like Unsainted, from their newer body of work. A swirling vortex of bodies opened up in the middle for the floor during the frenetic song, Duality.

Knotfest was loud and it was rowdy. It was an evening of controlled chaos and a moment of cathartic release amid the existential chaos that’s been unfolding over the last two years.

eva.wasney@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @evawasney