Slipknot brought the Knotfest Roadshow to Providence Medical Center Amphitheater on Saturday

Slipknot

Legendary Iowa nu-metal crew Slipknot made its first visit to the metro in five years on Saturday night. The band delivered to the thousands of Maggots in attendance at least two songs from each of its six studio albums. The Providence Medical Center Amphitheater stage had been transformed into a sprawling, spooky warehouse featuring industrial fans, pyrotechnics, catwalks, a conveyor belt for one of the turntablists to walk and dance on, and two eight-foot platforms for the band’s masked percussionists. There were, give or take, roughly 10 performers on stage at any given time. Highlights of the 90-minute set included watching singer Corey Taylor profess love for his fellow Midwesterners (each sentence punctuated with a “goddammit”) and a gnarly one-two punch of the band’s recent single “All Out Life” (arguably the best hardcore song of the last year, evidence of Slipknot’s continued vitality) and Vol. 3 headbanger “Duality.”

Behemoth

Each of the three supporting acts on the Knotfest Roadshow hailed from a different European country. Denmark’s Volbeat was well-intentioned but ultimately douchey—adults acting like teens and playing songs highly derivative of AC/DC and the Rolling Stones. One song employed a Southern drawl. France’s Gojira played death metal as progressive as a band of its size can play and made sure to shout out the “shitty fuckin’ club” it played nearby in 2007 (R.I.P. Beaumont Club). Poland’s Behemoth offered a half-hour Satanic blackened death spectacle. Appearing in all-black with face makeup in the August Kansas heat was a spectacle in its own right. 

All photos by Aaron Rhodes. 

Slipknot

Slipknot

Slipknot

Volbeat

Gojira

Gojira

Behemoth