Slipknot @ Copenhell 2023

2023-06-22

Goddamn straight I can feel this

Alright, criticism outta the way up front. Two things.

#1: Sound issues. Where I'm standing, the bass drums are too dominant, and the vocals are a bit too low. Not the only Copenhell show this year that has this problem.

#2: While the 'Knot could probably put on a great performance using only untuned acoustic guitars and cardboard boxes, a bright Northern European summer night like this isn't the optimal setting for their intensely angry catharsis. People are a bit too distracted and talkative – shit, even including yours truly. And even at zero beers today. I'm sorry about all of this.

On the plus sides, though, we ARE dealing with professionals here. And also, tonight's set is a nice mixed bag of something old, something new, etc. But especially the former.

In fact, 6 out of 16 songs tonight are from that ground-breaking self-titled '99 debut album. And yes, I KNOW there's that "Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat" thingy preceding it. But the band considers the S/T their debut, and the second release after the S/T – not the first one after it – is called "Vol. 3". Okay? Shut up.

… Anyway, incidentally, this is where we start: After the masterful, chilling "Prelude 3.0", the band enters with "The Blister Exists" from Slipknot's '04 artistic masterpiece, "Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses)". Impossible for a crowd not to explode, and impossible for yours truly not to light up in pure joy and rock out like an idiot – yes, even at zero beers.

"CAN YOU FEEL THIS?! I'M DYING TO FEEL THIS!!" Damn straight, dude. Man, those sick lead arpeggios in the verse. This is almost 20 years old; I haven't heard it in more than 10, and it fucking holds up. And that drum break section halfway through, man…

There are several high points like this throughout. A bit on the poppy side or not, "Psychosocial" has become a new-classic crowd pleaser. And yes, while Slipknot's poppy elements do tend to be a bit on the poppy side, we also get pure, frenzied rage in "Iowa" ('02) classics "The Heretic Anthem" and "People = Shit", and in the wonderful little surprise "Eyeless" from the debut. (Which IS their debut. Okay? Shut up.)

While there's a bottom line of quality at Slipknot shows, there's also an equivalent top to which not all songs amount. "Liberate" and "Purity", for example, were never the most interesting songs on the debut (shut up). And while 2019-track "Unsainted" does retain 100% of the band's energy and ethos, it still leaves quite a few of us in a pitstop, as does several other new tunes. Some people seem pretty stoked about the fine "Yen" and "The Dying Song (Time To Sing)" from last year's fine "The End, So Far", but most others obviously still haven't picked up on that album yet. And the otherwise movingly beautiful "Snuff" sadly also falls a bit flat in this bright, open-air festival setting.

So it is, naturally, aforementioned classics, along with their fellow classics, which keep our blood pumping. That manic schizophrenia of "Wait and Bleed" will probably never get old. And equally violent main set closer "Surfacing" will always be an anthem for the angry misfit in us all. I've known this band since their debut (nuh-uh!), and still today, I'm happily raising both middle fingers high and, with a hoarse 3rd-day festival throat, happily shouting along with those equally banal and cathartic lines of violent, human frustration:

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!

And hereupon, the perfect, *ahem*, dualism between stadium singalong and hard-hitting tribal groove of first encore "Duality" really IS perfect. It peaks right here. And even though "Spit It Out" might not be a natural show closer, it's almost a bit touching how MC Corey Taylor does that thing where he has us all sit down during the second verse and then jump back up at the chorus. It's old, but it just fucking works. The crowd explodes in the biggest collective frenzy so far as 10-meter pillars of Hell erupt from the stage.

Impossible not to feel this.

It's a funny thing about the 'Knot. In my review yesterday, I called Pantera the 'Iron Maiden of the '90s'. And in the same way, it could very well be said that Slipknot are the Pantera of the '00s.

And while the 'Knot, like Pantera, are responsible for leaving a lot of polished cookie-cutter jock-metal in their wake, you can't take it away from either of the two that they've reached their status by being damn good at what they do. And that includes putting on a goddamn show. Daylight and sound issues or not.

Rating: 4.5 out of 6

Genre: Groove metal / nu-metal
Venue: Copenhell, Helvíti Stage
Date: Fri., 16/6/2023

Set list:

  1. The Blister Exists
  2. The Dying Song (Time to Sing)
  3. Liberate
  4. Yen
  5. Psychosocial
  6. The Devil in I
  7. The Heretic Anthem
  8. Eyeless
  9. Wait and Bleed
  10. Unsainted
  11. Snuff
  12. Purity
  13. People = Shit
  14. Surfacing

    Encore:
  15. Duality
  16. Spit It Out
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