13.02.16

Before going to this gig, I knew it would be one of the best things I have ever experienced. 

I have been a huge fan of Slipknot since I was small. My older Brother Daniel would listen to them on Scuzz/Kerrang and I would sit by him playing with my Barbie Dolls. Daniel has inspired my musical taste since then and I have been heavily influenced by him. The first time I was drawn into a Slipknot song was when Daniel left a TV on in the room, the music video for 'Left Behind' was playing and I was so interested. I just couldn't grasp why this child had been left alone in his house and had to resort to eating cereal with dirty tap water. I was both scared and intrigued. I later found out this video was based on the bad parenting of Corey's Mother.

My personal favorite Slipknot track is 'Duality' and I truly got to experience the madness of this song at Download Festival 2015. I rocked my little booty off and screamed my lungs out, so I was excited to do this again at the Leeds O2 Arena.

                                     

The only issue with attending this time was the fact that I was still recovering from Influenza. I had a temperature, a snotty nose and a bad case of 'wanting to be in bed', but I knew I couldn't miss out on one of my favourite bands. They are simply too amazing to miss. We arrived at the O2 Arena and it was PACKED. There were people everywhere. I felt amazed to be surrounded by fellow music lovers and we quickly found ourselves gravitating towards the merch stand. Unfortunately there wasn't anything too amazing, but Kyle bought himself a Tour shirt which I will of course, steal when desired.

                                     

As I'd already seen them play at Download I knew what to expect and knew I'd be amazed. We first had to sit through two support acts which were called 'Sixth' I think, and 'Suicidal Tendencies'. Now I get that Corey is probably friends with both bands, but I can't understand why he invited either to support Slipknot. Both bands were completely different genres and I didn't like either, but the crowd seemed to like them and I guess that's what matters. Moving on to Slipknot...

                                     

While they did play a lot of classics, they also stuck to playing new songs which didn't get as much of a reaction as the songs such as records from Iowa. Another point to make about the concert was the god awful screens playing behind them. Me and Tim found ourselves fixated on the hilarious graphics or sometimes gory graphics of Skeletons and other unknown animations floating around. They were so bad and also so distracting. Sid kept catching my eye as he loves to keep jogging and running around stage, he is quite simply, mental (in the good way). At one point he jumped from the highest point of the stage down to his area, it was spectacular. 

The crowd definitely seemed to produce a euphoric atmosphere as you kinda felt like you should also join in, singing, screaming, and headbanging. The mosh pits were something from another dimension. The WHOLE entirety of the standing crowd were one huge mosh pit. If I'm being honest, I was fixated on them more than the actual band. It was really nice that Corey would take his in-between song resting time to check on the crowd and ask if everyone was okay. He seems to be the sort of person that genuinely cares about his 'maggots'.

I knew I'd enjoy this gig, and I did. The only down point of the whole experience is that we were sat in the weirdest, least practical seats in the right hand corner of the O2 Arena which meant we saw a side on angle of the stage, and we could also see behind the curtain because of this, which meant that the magic of the band 'appearing on stage' wasn't there. Apart from this, we all enjoyed it. We screamed our lungs out to the songs we knew and we danced to those that we didn't.

Happy gig hunting, xox