Live Review : Slipknot + Behemoth @ MEN Arena, Manchester on January 16th 2020

Mainstream Metal tends to keep Black Metal at an arm's length. It is reluctant to invite its it's uncouth younger sibling to prestigious occasions, for fear that they will say the wrong thing (like hail Satan in old Norse), burn a couple of churches down or attempt to sacrifice the pet cat. Behemoth however seem to have got in under the wire and are viewed as the acceptable (corpse painted) face of the extreme genres, without actually in any way tempering their approach. They maybe playing one of Europe’s biggest arenas as the opening act for the hottest show in town, but they are still one hundred percent a nasty venomous Satan worshipping machine. 

There is however one fly in the ointment (or face paint) and that is nobody has informed Nergal that he isn’t headlining. In all my years of gigging ,this is the first time I have ever seen a support band have screens, ramps, props and fire, lots and lots and lots of fire. In fact, every primal roar praising the virtues of their satanic master is accompanied by a plume of flame. Black Metal has always had an edge of cabaret macabre about it, but usually the theatrics are low budget and distinctly DIY. This is a whole different ball game, this is Black Metal with Hollywood production values.

Performance wise fire is also the watch word as Behemoth blaze off the stage. Unlike some of their Black Metal contemporaries, Behemoth were belched out of whatever dark void they came from specifically to play huge stages. They utterly own the wide open space that is the Manchester Arena.  Whilst 'Wolves Ov Siberia' is feverishly welcomed exclusively by the corpse paint adorned fan boys and girls on the barrier, by the time they reach 'Ora Pro Nobis Lucifer ‘(the sole number from the sublime “The Satanist”) they have most of Slipknot’s diehard fan base eating out of their painted hands. And that is the whole point, the vast majority of people in here won’t know their Emperor from their Enslaved, but they are still swept up in the majestic absurdness of the whole thing and scream along with 'Ov Fire and the Void’ thunderous refrains like they have been lifelong devotees. Tonight Behemoth are simply magnificent and manage to convert the entire room to their cause without compromising an inch of their integrity. We have witnessed the birth of Stadium Black Metal.

Live, Slipknot tread a fine line between chaos and choreography. This is a slick highly produced arena rock show with hypnotic visuals, gigantic aerial walkways, ramps and even travelators. However being Slipknot there is also always a feeling that no matter how rehearsed and stage managed the whole thing is, it could still disintegrate into an anarchic pandemonium at any given moment. Central to that experience is the way that the nine of them hurtle around the stage like disorderly whirlwinds. It’s like some extreme version of ‘Where’s Wally’ as you try and keep pace of where each of them are at any given point (Where’s Sid? Oh he is hanging of a gantry, now I’ve lost Tortilla Face (real name) but look there he is perched on Clown’s Steel Drums, (its non stop fun at a Slipknot gig)). It is that riotous energy that has kept me coming back time and time again. The “we are all one family” stich may wear thin when a bunch of millionaire’s have charged each of us seventy quid for the privilege of seeing them perform, but boy do they burn off that stage. 

Slipknot gigs are like a frenzied journey through head-on traffic and seventeen tracks are dispensed with in a just under an hour and a half. There is little room to breathe or pause for reflection as they fire out track after track. Even by their standards there is a frantic unstoppable pace to tonight’s show. We  get five numbers from their debut record (interestingly more than we get from their latest offering) and the intervening years hasn’t dulled the savagery of say 'Wait and Bleed' and '(Sic)’. Whilst it was great to have 'Eeyore' and ‘Eyeless' back in the set, the absence of 'Spit It Out' (the one where Cory makes us all sit down and then we all jump up again, genius) was at best bewildering and at worst nonsensical.

 Ultimately, Slipknot are so good at what they do now that they are simply unable to do bad gigs. I might have little grumbles at the speed that tore through the set, the clarity of the sound (the keyboards were way too high up in the mix) and Cory seeming less engaged than usual, but really I am just nit-picking at things. Slipknot never fail to deliver, they never give less than a hundred and fifty percent and they always leave me waiting for my next encounter with these nine masked men, tonight was no different.