Slipknot in Nancy 23/06/05

As part of the Subliminal Verses Tour, the 9 played at the Zénith, and then again in Lyon. Not Paris (ha! up yours, oh distant capital-concert-hoggers!) .

I went with 4 german friends of mine (well i'd only ever met 1 of them but still this is rock'n'roll.) and we turned up at 8:15. After getting our bracelets confiscated we were in. We got right down the front pretty quickly, cuz it was a relatively small crowd (loads of people were sitting down, miles away from the stage. idiots.). At 8:25 (5 minutes before the ticket said-- they were EARLY!) a bunch of guys came out in jeans and t-shirts and i was thinking "WTF?! where are the masks???" for about a second until i realised there was only five of them and it was the opening band. But they didn't sound like Gojira, and weren't they on earlier??? hm wierd... anyway they were great.

After their first amazing song, the singer told us who they were ("for those who've never heard of us"), but no-one heard cuz of the applause. At first I thought they were Funeral For A Friend cuz the guy had a welsh accent when he spoke, but i wasn't sure. I found out after the show that they were the Dillinger Escape Plan. At one point both the singer and guitarist went stage-diving in pretty much the same place (namely, my face). my nose was sore for almost a week afterwards. very rock'n'roll.

Then they went away, and the Slipknot techs came out, moved the gear into place, did all the checking and stuff. Meanwhile the stupid impatient french members of the crowd were complaining about the wait. I was thinking (and saying in German to my new mates -- don't you just love it when no-one can understand you except the people you want to understand you?) "damn, you're here to see slipknot for fuck's sake, they're gonna be awesome, just give 'em a minute to make it all sound perfect you dicks! when there are nine band members, you should expect it to take a minute or two!"

So at 9:30 the lights went out, and the roar was amazing... it carried on for so long that you couldn't actually hear Prelude 3.0 at first because of it being a "quiet" intro... you could feel the expectation, I was thinking "This is it, here we go.." as everyone started squeezing forward. I was right at the front, maybe five metres from the absolute middle of the stage, spitting distance (literally) from #8 Corey all through the set. I had to fight to keep my spot, clinging on to the barriers (I knew those had a purpose)... Germans helped. The whole time we were like "was that a spike? did i see an arm?"... then they came out and when straight in to The Blister Exists.

The other songs they played, not too sure of the order (album number / track number) :

Before I Forget (3/10) "Our new fucking single, sing the words if you know'em."

Duality (3/4) "You may have noticed that one of our brothers is missing tonight. We had 2 options, cancel the show, or be loyal to our fans and do it without him. Clown may not be here tonight, but that doesn't mean we can't sing a song so loud he can hear it all the way back in Des Moines, Iowa where he's taking care of his Mom, cuz sometimes family's all you got in this fucked up world." I PUSH MY FINGERS INTO MY EYES... IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT SLOWLY STOPS THE ACHE... IF THE PAIN GOES ON I'M NOT GONNA MAKE IT!

Vermilion (3/8)

Pulse Of The Maggots (3/9)

Everything Ends (2/5) "We've never played this song in France before. I'm not even gonna tell which one it is, we're just gonna play it, and I'm gonna enjoy the look on your faces when you recognize it." YOU ARE WRONG, FUCKED AND OVERRATED I THINK I'M GONNA BE SICK AND IT'S YOUR FAULT, THIS IS THE END OF EVERYTHING, YOU ARE THE END OF EVERYTHING!

People = Shit (2/2) "So you like the Iowa album?"

The Heretic Anthem (2/6) "This song is dedicated to all those fake, plastic bands who think it's all about the money." If you're 555 then I'm 666!

Surfacing (1/5) "This song is your new national fucking anthem!" FUCK IT ALL! FUCK THIS WORLD! FUCK EVERYTHING THAT YOU STAND FOR! DON'T BELONG! DON'T EXIST! DON'T GIVE A SHIT! DON'T EVER JUDGE ME!

Spit It Out (1/6) "It's time for some old school shit." (speaking of which there was another song they played just after this one that I didn't recognize, I think it must have been from before they were known as Slipknot, when there were fewer of them. MFKR: Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.

In the middle of Spit It Out, they broke it all down, till there was just that one little guitar, all alone, repeating itself over and over... "We know you're loud, but are you really crazy? I want every motherfucking last one of you down on the floor, come on you crazy motherfuckers, show me you're crazy, get on the fucking floor, now! Even at the back, come on, that's right! Now you guys are gonna stay right fucking there till I say, can you do that? Andf when I say, I want you crazy motherfuckers to jump up so fucking high, but first you gotta stay down there right?" It was really tough getting down, cuz we were all sort of squatting, ready to jump, and you take up more room that way than when you're standing up, so it got pretty tight. He had us stay down for an entire chorus... We jumped so fucking high, the surge of energy was amazing and we all carried each other higher... Somehow I managed to land where I had started: right down the front.

Wait And Bleed (1/4) This was the last song, just before Danger - Keep Away came on telling us the awesome show was over. My heart flooded with emotion at this one, twinging pain and happiness at the same time. The same, very very short time, however, cuz i had to concentrate on avoiding death by crushing. I'VE FELT THE HATE RISE UP IN ME KNEAL DOWN AND CLEAR THE STONE OF LEAVES I WANDER OUT WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE INSIDE MY SHELL I WAIT AND BLEED




I heard a few people after concert complaining about Wait And Bleed, saying it was overplayed. That may be true, and a lot of people only know about that one and People = Shit, but seriously, IT'S THEIR OWN FUCKING SONG, SURELY THEY CAN'T "OVERPLAY" IT CAN THEY? Don't they have the right to play it as much as they like, since they created it? come on.

One thing I didn't like was the way everyone after the concert were trying to get the security down the front to give them free stuff off the stage. They were really desperate, it was so pathetic. #2 the bassist chucked a few picks, and #1 Joey the drummer tossed his sticks into the crowd, and to the few who got stuff I say "lucky you", cuz that's a cool way to remember the show. But to stand down the front for so long when you're obviously nbot going to get anything is just wrong. We really are maggots.

Also, when you go to a such concert, you should really expect that things are going to get a bit warm. It was ridficulous how the people behind me were begging for water. they got some, but not enough really. it was silly, they should have known how thirsty they'd be. i could have managed.
Mind you, I wasn't in the mosh much, and I got loads of water anyway from being at the front, but I still would have managed without it.

Being in France, most of the people there were French. That wasn't too bad in itself, as I managed to form an insulating wall of Germans around me (if there's one thing the Germans do well... it's walls -- eek sorry! . No really what I meant to say is that when it comes to heavy metal the teutons know what they're doing.). But what really got us better anglophones was the chanting... "SLEEP-NOT! SLEEP-NOT!". Ok guys, don't go to bed if you really don't want to, but aat leasat fuck off and learn to pronouce the name of this band you're venerating. I won't start on the lyrics they were singing either... That's one the advantages of buying cds instead of dling or copying: ou learn the titles and the words are reprinted accurately. Anyway, The music was so loud I didn't have to put up with it too much.


Afterwards I bought myself a bandana. It's red and has a big Slipknot logo. Duh! Outside there were loads of touts flogging cheaper crappier merch, and tht was all entirely uncool and besides the point of Slipknot. I was glad to see that absolutely no-one was buying anything.

My jeans got ripped on the barriers at the front too. I've covered the whole with a Slipknot (of course) patch, it looks really cool. The sleeve of my Clash t-shirt, however, will be harder to recover.


#8 Corey swore they would return to Nancy. I intend to be there.
And then there was the crowd-surfing... whoa.