10 / 31 / 09
Sit down me beauties, relax, and look into my wonderfully wondrous visions of wonder.
Alright, so what follows here is pretty much a full account of my night at the Trinity of Terrors in Vegas for Slipknot's last tour stop. I wrote it shortly after with weird dimension bending premonitions of future nostalgia for my very first concert experience, hehe. So, while I would love for you to read it and enjoy it, you would not be at all remiss to just viddy the pics or videos or what not. Because, while your time and time in actuality is relative and illusory, it is alas, somehow still finite. And this is several parchment feet worth of recounting. ^-^ Is a bit late...Been meaning to post it since last month... work, holidays, the usual shit I guess. >_<
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So, as anyone who knows me knows (or knows someone I know... or came within an 87 mile radius of me... or who got lost on the interwebz) I got to go to Slipknot's EPIC show in Vegas on Halloween. The last 'knot show of the All Hope Is Gone album cycle. Yes. Not many moons ago, heh more on that later. Dude.. I have yet to fully wrap my head around the night, so I'm taking this step by step. Go ahead and laugh at me, I know I'm geeking out. But oh my fucking god, I'm still buzzing.. even now, with most of the bruises faded and the scrapes nicely scabbed, and all the regular shit crowding back in... I'm still walking around higher than space junk! Why it has taken me so long to make this entry is a combination of the inanity and mundanity of life, plus a generous sprinkling of herzelied... and a big steaming pile of FAPPED. Cha. For those who are unfamiliar with this insidious and cruel practice, that's the nasty four letter word its victims use for the technique which is applied after a violation of the "Fair Access Policy" has occurred... in other words, I (unwittingly) exceeded my bandwidth use and therefore have had my internet access restricted. More like eliminated. Unlike my previous experiences with this heinous policy where I exceeded my download limits e.g. viewing pictures, streaming video, downloading tunage... you know, surfing the damn web... this time, I exceeded my upload limit. Something I'd never come even close to doing before and didn't even think that I could. And guess how I did it my lovelies...? Yes, that's right, by uploading my concert footage to youtube. Fuck this shit. I've been paying an exorbitant amount of the cashish for years for something I barely ever used and the one time I have a need for it and I get my ass kicked. Anyway, there's still a FAP ticket on my account so my access is extremely limited... they throttled me waaaay down, worse than ever before. I can basically only connect (at glacier speed) during non-peak hours... which is pretty much anytime after fucking 2am till sometime a little later in the morning. And even then, basically I can only get into my email inbox. The only reason you are seeing this entry is, a) because I was stubborn and lucky enough to force it through or b) because the mandatory one month term in solitary confinement has finally elapsed and I'm out of the red. Prolly more like the latter, being that LJ will not load if my damn life depended on it. Fuck. Hey! Guess what?! Guess what! I still got all my motherfucking video up before being ground down by the ugly bandwidth gestapos' boot, so fuck them!
But never mind all that right now. This could not be stopped. And this is about Slipknot... and it was the fucking shit. Please continue.
Ok, so we arrive in Vegas and make our way to The Palms casino... I should explain the "we", huh? Heh, right... I was with 2 of me broskis... my lil bro Jimi and older bro Sean and also his girlfriend (and my good friend/most-likely-sis-to-be) Mary Ann. My bra Sean is a long time maggot too while Jim Sum only figured it out far more recently... between Sean and I we managed to corrupt his immaculate little mind and convert him into full-on metalhead only in the past 8 months or so. Pretty succinctly done, I must say. Once it starts it can't be stopped, mwahahaha! And Mary Ann... actually I don't think she was all that into the N9ne... at least not the majority of their work. I believe that may have changed that night though. Hellz yes. Anyway... so we arrive at the Palms... and see this magnificent sight.
Did the predictable yet still cool pic beneath the badassery.
Then we headed inside. The place was krazy busy already even that early in the day. Of course the Fangoria Trinity of Terrors festival festivities were happening all day so they were mostly peeps attending the movie screenings and Q&A's with horror movie legends etc etc. You could easily tell who they were because they were mostly dressed to the nines in costume for Halloween or were otherwise alternative and cool looking cats. So first thing we did was scope out the entry area to The Pearl which is this awesome intimate concert venue beneath the Palms... the entrance to it is on the casino floor, and then you travel down, into the earth. Anywho, there were like 3 'knot-shirt-wearing kids loitering there but otherwise no real sign of the threat of a huge mass of dedicated maggots looking to queue up super early. So we wander off and take in the sights.
Meanwhile I'm texting a friend and fellow maggot that I have known for a good long time online but had never met. She had flown across the country to take in the epicness and we were trying to find each other there. This wasn't to happen till later though. I should mention that the scale of legend this event had already achieved resulted in maggots from all over the world flying in to be there... Canada, England, Switzerland.. all over... this was huge. Which I was fully aware of. And stoked that I was getting to see this show... but also apprehensive about the possibility of not getting my spot in front (which I had already claimed within my amazing brain) considering I'd be contending with such dedicated fans. So no matter what I was doing that afternoon I circled back to that entrance regular-like to see who was there.
Anyway... we killed some time by taking in a movie and doing a little of the inevitable shopping... I confess to buying the double dvd set of Ice Age Dawn of the Dinasaurs/Scrat Pack and Coraline to bring home to me nugget (he loves, btw), another awesome Joker t-shirt, a Jack Skellington belt, new 16 gauge stainless steel rings for all 8 of my ear piercings, and this SIC and sexy 'knot wallet that I pull out and flash all the time now - even when it's empty or I have absolutely no need to, hehe. I also got a chance to sit down with my Touch once I found a hot spot and read the previous days episode of the NS. It was krazy... I sat there sputtering and scrolling and re-reading and laughing and scratching my head and re-reading and guffawing... all the while as the freaks and ho's walked by in there Halloween outfits. It was one of the single most surreal experiences of my life. Spank you, CaelBim. ^O^
A note here... since the day I saw this date on Slipknot's tour page and had complete bladder evacuation, I had been contemplating/plotting/planning on some how getting my camera into the concert... even though it stated clearly and explicitly on the Pearl website that recording devices were not permitted. There were about two chances I was gonna pay heed to that... no chance and a dogs chance. There was no doubt I was shoving my camera in my shoe or my panties or wherever... no, the question now was whether or not we were gonna risk bringing in Mary Ann's awesome camera as well. The worry was that if they found it on us that we'd would have to get out of line and go check it in etc... was it worth it? Sean decided to go ask the security guards and personnel straight up. He found out that, according to a guard it was a vehement "NO. Absolutely no cameras permitted." He got a second opinion from a girl at the ticket desk who said "Only cell phone cameras." He came back pretty convinced and dejected. He also told me that the guard had gone on to say that it all depended on the artist's wishes and that Slipknot were extremely strict about that policy. I called bullshit right away. I knew that was a bold-faced lie... you don't follow a band as long as I have the 'knot and not know something like that about them. And being the only member of OT9 at the table, I told them about how many fan pics were all over their own website/forum/fan section and what not... but I was unable to convince them. So we put her camera in the truck.
It was around 3pm that I noticed that my heart rate was pretty much permanently up. For real. I couldn't fuckin believe that I was finally going to see these motherfuckers rip a place apart. I was so stoked. It's an intense feeling when your chest is in that state for a prolonged period of time... feels really good, yet frightening in a way.
Then we made another pass at the entrance and noticed several more peeps standing there... and even though there was still nearly 2 hrs to the show we figured it was time to queue up and be among the first handful. Only to find a couple minutes later that a guard comes over and says that there would be no queuing up or loitering until 15 minutes till 7... which was when the doors would officially open. I looked at the guard and said, "Are you fucking krazy?! You're gonna have a bloody stampede on your hands!" Apparently he didn't respond to such insolence because I didn't get an answer. So everyone broke up... pissed me off let me tell ya. If I had known that I wouldn't have been rushing back there every fucking half hour all day.
Meanwhile, I was feeling kind of bummed that I still hadn't met up with my girl Mich and she wasn't anywhere to be found... and she had stopped responding to my text's. (Found out later that the krazy chica had managed to pass out already, lol) I knew that around the time I was down in the pit watching the opening act, the lucky biyotch was gonna be experiencing the fucking meet&greet with fucking Slipknot... because her name was drawn in the fucking lottery and not mine! *big violent dry-heaving sob* Anyfuckingway! So we went and ate and then I put on the boots that I had in the truck bed... I had thrown them in my bag just in case. I figured if it turned out I was stuck behind tons of people, which it was now looking like that might be the case, at least with my chunky 3inch heels I would be able to see just as much as the 3 freakin tallies I had come with. :P And then we were back again and getting shooed off again along with all the other stubborn line loiterers. We took to wandering right there among the slots and pretending that we weren't ready to freakin pounce, heh.
Okay... I'ma get a little anecdotal real quick so hang tight... we're getting ready to queue up any minute, right? And I think... hell I better go for a piss before hand. So I grab Mary Ann's arm and we head to the lavatory... I dunno why it's always a herd thing when females pop-a-squat btw. I've not analyzed it too much yet, so I'll get back to you. (Shit, that was like a footnote inside an anecdote... that's just a wormhole waiting to happen, yeeesh) Anyway, so there I am doing my thing and taking a pee (Damn... that was for you Crypty lol) and I go to wipe... and I look down... and my blob of Wrigley's found a new home on the tiled floor. You've got to be fucking kidding me.... The bloody red river...?! Now?! A friggin week early, at least. I totally sat there in the stall and yelled "Judas Fucking Priest, What The Fuck!" I hear Mary Ann all worried "What happened?!" Cha... then she laughed. And then a few seconds later she's all, "Oh shit... I've been feeling crampy" I said "yeah smartass, that insta-karma is a bitch, yo?" lol we practically live together, so we're on the rag around the same time every month, same as with my sis... so she knows better! (Hey, there's that herd shit again. o_O) Back to the timeline, I was pretty much incredulous at that point, wandering around trying to find a damn jam rag... it was only later sometime that morning before I passed out, 4AM-ish, that I started to piece it together. In that span of about oh 24 seconds or so I thought (and sorry for all the TMI but..) for the past few years I've pretty much been on the same cycle as the full moon. But for the last few months, a day here and a day there, I've gotten further and further off it till it pretty much no longer applied.
Well, girls and boils, the moon was only 2 days away from being full that Halloween night...
and to add to the 'knot's orchestrated reign of blood and fright...
as I stood in the elevator en-route to my hotel room at the Eastside Cannery that night...
low and behold I look up at a spooktacular and glowing orange sight...
the 13th fucking floor - room 1321.... I shit you not.
Good lord.. I just laughed my ass off writing that. Who the fuck do I think I am getting all Tim Burton on ya, eh? I suck. 'Twas funny sauce though. And fuckin kreepy! Moving on!
So finally we make it back to the doors and are livid to find that a big ass line had formed even though it's not even near the time the guard had specified. The boys had managed to get in there among the first 30 or so people though, so Mary Ann made it look good and rushed in and kissed Sean... I just held her hand and stink-eyed the guys glaring at me cutting in. An undead queen of hearts that I had been talking to when we queued up hours earlier totally vouched for me then, and I was good. But about to give someone a real chunk of my mind seeing as we were now not going to get in the front row even though we had been there since the fucking AM. As I stood there stewing for the remaining time wondering how I might go about causing a scene because of how unjust this shit was.... an amazing thing happened... an entrance personal person came down the line yelling out "guys form a line on the right, and girls on the left" Suddenly there were about five girls in front of me and Mary Ann as all the guys jammed themselves over to the right! The perks of being a hardcore metal-chick, dude. There just aren't that many of us. \oo/ The actual fairness and ramifications of this practice is not lost on me... it was totally fair in my case but I'm pretty certain there must have been some pissed off dudes considering that meant the females snapped up most of the front section. Ah well... where was I? Oh yeah, I yelled over to Sean to "find us!" and Mary Ann and I took off like speed freaks on 'roids who had suddenly found themselves in the carpool lane. We get to the door where a woman requests to see our tickets... so I whip mine out from my brandspankinnew SIC and sexy 'knot wallet and she scans it, and then a woman right behind her says "please empty your pockets and stand here"... she then proceeds to frisk. Except this is no frisk... this is so light and un-thorough it wouldn't even make the most hyper-sensitive sex-starved uber-pervert get even the slightest tingle in their nether regions. So I'm in my head, thinking... "I have a small bust, and a relatively bulky camera... and that thing is perfectly safe where it's stashed in my boobcups. Damn."
Meanwhile outside my head in the somewhat less disturbing reality, Mary Ann and I make our way down what was at least 4 or 5 flights of stairs, running not walking despite the guards on each landing telling us to do so. Pa-shaw... no fuckin way. And I must say I did rather well in my clunkers. Finally we make it to the last floor and are greeted with one last check where we get our paper bracelets and then... we enter The Pearl:
Not the greatest shot, but I wanted to show you how tiny the place is. 2000 people capacity. Pretty fuckin awesome.
At that point though, the place only has a few GA people inside and we go straight for the stage... there's already a group huddled there, which I knew there would be. I recognized lots of them... and they were all OT9ers... OT9ers who were legit hardcore maggots... OT9ers from out of state and far away... OT9ers with early entry passes. But I see a spot right in front that's open... it's slightly left of center and only one row deep. We're all up in there. There's a couple girls in front of us and they say hi and introduce themselves and I do so back and there's a lot of "Oh! You're her?! That's you? Cool! Nice to meet you in person!" etc. which was pretty excellent. I don't hangout online with them enough to really know them... I don't have the time for that, man O_O... but it was cool enough. So I was standing behind this girl from Jersey who was, get this... shorter than me! She's tiny, right? I'm standing there looking at the stage and it's like I'm in the first row... and I'm not even pressed up against her yet. So I'm fuckin stoked. Mary Ann and I go about trying to make a pocket of space with our limbs while looking towards the entrance where peeps are pouring in. Finally we spot the boys and wave them over... and they manage to get in behind us.
So we're all set and freaking out about how fucking close to the stage we are, and how badass the backdrop on the stage is... and making out 1, 3 and 6's drumsets and hydraulics hidden under giant black sheets on the stage. And then I look at Sean and said "We could have gotten the camera in dude... no fucking problem." He's all "I know... I can't believe they didn't wand us. Fuckin A." I stand there thinking for half a second and then I'm like "I'm going to get it." He's shaking his head "No way. It's like a mile! You'd have to go back up all those stairs, through the casino, out the front and around the side to the elevator, and take that up to our level in the parking garage and find the truck. And then come back. Plus it'll be packed down here by then!" Stubborn ass that I am I put out my hand "Gimme the keys." He's shaking his head still, even as he hands them to me "oh shit"... I'm gone. Going against the tide as the milieu rush in. Now I'm not particularly in shape... I mean, I keep pretty fit but I could do a helluva lot more. But I killed it that night. I was back in front of that prudish frisker with a camera stuffed in my boot so fuckin fast, I prolly alerted security and had all the plain-clothes cops wandering around completely on edge. But Slipknot already has that effect on places... what's one more psychotic maggot, eh? Hehe... So I make it all the way down and back in and it's pretty fuckin full, but I'm not panicking... I'm tiny and I could squeeze my way back to the front. I got held up only a couple times, especially trying to get by the this big burly bearded man... dressed as Heidi. I told him he looked lovely and to let me pass. I admit I also got a little distracted passing guys with 'knot masks on... they're awfully realistic. Most of them were official masks that you can buy from the band site... I think I want a few now. I told one guy that I passed who was wearing a #8 mask that he'd better bloody well represent. And finally I spot a lit up cell screen that Sean's waving in the air and I'm back with my (somewhat incredulous) peeps. I produce the goods and hand it to Sean. The plan is, he'll film while I get pics.
Before long it's pretty full inside and the roadies are up on stage preparing for the openers Visions of Disorder. I yelled out to one wearing a Mastodon hoodie and flashed the devil horns. Soon the lights went down and VoD took the stage. I hadn't heard much of them before... they're a pretty good hardcore band. Vocals were intense and there was great energy and punk metal attitude. Ultimately it was only a warm up for the 'knot of course. The frontman acknowledged that a few songs in with great respect and appreciation, to deafening applause. They played one more track and bowed out.
Then the anticipation began to build in earnest. There was a hum of activity on stage. The oh so familiar and friendly smell of cannabis virtually permeated the venue at this point... I began to fancy that the smoke billowing from the stage was spiked. Slipknot had just come from the Smoke Out Fest in socal after all, hehe. Music is being pumped out... and I'm counting the minutes. At one point, eons later it seemed, "Running with the Devil" begins, and I'm singing along... little did I know this would be the intro song. The track ends. The lights go down...
Then finally begins the sound of the intro to Slipknot's infamous debut album... the indignant voice of a woman saying "the whole thing, I think, is sick." being looped over and over and over... (funfact: twas lifted off a Charles Manson documentary.) And then I start to see the unmistakable shapes emerge on stage.... 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.... all taking their places. Then last 8 slowly comes forth and they're all there. Still and ominous... glaring at the crowd.
It was like a rubber band about to snap when finally Sic begins. Holy fuck. Immersion complete. I was so warmed up at that point I was done for from the first riff, it was embarrassing lol. I was transported... I just let go and fell into each song. Screaming every word at the top of my lungs. Which, when it comes to 'knot songs, isn't all that easy, really heh. The aural intensity was just monstrous though, and it made hearing yourself damn near impossible.. it was liberating. And that feeling... you know that sensation that the incredibly intense reverberating bass and massive percussion is originating from within your own chest... guh. So here comes the setlist... unfuckingbelievably awesome assault of awesomeness. A lot of the usual suspects, but I wouldn't have it any other way on that night. Check it...
Sic
Eyeless
Wait & Bleed
Get This
Before I Forget
Sulfur
The Blister Exists
Dead Memories
Disasterpeice
Vermilion
Psychosocial
Duality
People = Shit
Snuff
Surfacing
Spit It Out
Pure distilled beautiful violence. Epic. The whole set ran, maybe an hour and 45 minutes or so. I didn't want it to end. Stating high points would be pretty redundant, considering if I got any higher then I was the entire night the golden umbilical cord would have snapped, lol... but, I will say that - going apeshit during Get This - getting treated to Vermilion - getting bludgeoned during psychofuckingsocial - hearing the entire crowd sing the opening lines of duality a capella - screaming "people equal shit" - hearing and seeing Snuff live - shredding the shirt of a crowd surfer who kicked me in the head - chanting fuck me - I'm all out of enemies with 2000 other maggots with our fingers in the air - the zero bullshit jump the fuck up - seeing the Nine do their thing right there, so close I got spit it on - and just being there with my peeps and maggots... that was pretty fuckin sweet.
I snapped shots here and there with my camera. It was pretty impossible, being krushed from all sides... Mary Ann had ended up squeezed up behind me, and I was thoroughly pressed up against Ali, the girl in front of me... it was a full on tag team threesome spooning and I could pretty much only get my right arm half way out most of the time. And I knew that with the khaos behind me that Sean was mostly just trying to stay in place and shield us as much as he could from the throng... and that there was no way he was filming anything. But it wasn't until well nigh on the back half of the show before I managed to crane my neck back far enough to catch the attention of my brother and convey that I wanted the other camera. He shook his head and screamed that he couldn't get it out of his pocket. I did my best puppy dog eyes and mouthed "ok" and turned back to the spectacle. It wasn't a couple minutes later when I noticed this red camera bouncing around in my peripheral view... I realized who's camera and who's hand it was that was trying to pass it to me and snatched it. I turned that bad boy on right away and started recording. Duality had more or less just begun.... and I recorded from there to the very end. I'm only sorry I didn't get the whole night... would've been amazing to have it from front to back. What I did get is spectacular, it really is. A few times I'd see Sean's hand and pass the camera to him and he'd get big high sweeping shots and pass it back to me, it was incredible. Now, this is beside the point, but I'm gonna go ahead and state that my footage is some of the very best bootlegged video of a Slipknot show on the web, ever... and easily the best of this show. Front row, fantastic HD clarity, and the sound is actually pretty amazing... normally a little camera like that doesn't have a mic on it that can handle those decibels without being fuzzed out... amazing. It's just a little Canon PowerShot SD780-IS but it's got something like 12.1 megapixels. I love this camera. I will get one for meself one day, it's excellent.
I made a slideshow of stills on Flickr. They're all down-res so it's fast... there's some uber frames too. Looksee.
Here's some choice shots...
Joey and his insane kit...
Clown with his drums fully extended...
Mick looking like the total axe murderer that he is and a pretty good one of Paul...
Jim doing kickass hair-whipping headbanging...
I love this one of Sid...I didn't get see too much of him as he was on the other side of the stage most of the time... except when he was going totally apeshit and swinging off the side of Clowns hydraulics as they went up... and once when he came over and fucked with Craig and tried to deck him...
Chris hitting mach freakin 5 with his nose in true Pornoccio badassery...
Epic triple-growl at the opening of People = Shit...
Clown doing his filmmaker thing... hey, maybe I'll be on a future DVD ^-^...
Here's the whole slideshow... I love this first one. The colors, and both Joey and Clown with their arms up, Mick staring someone down, Corey all dead-center and in focus, plus the Pearl security guard. He was cool... poured water in my mouth several times... plus he had those awesome Manson-ish eye contacts in. The rest of them just looked like they hated their jobs, heh... maybe they just hated the knot. Dum fux.
Quite a few good ones... not exactly pro-quality, but I think I might even be able to use some as my resources, which would be awesome. There's even a few of the ever elusive Craig, you can see him with his spikes in the background. Kinda, hehe. There's a few awkward angled ones in there of myself and posse jam-packed in the pit. And of course a lot of Corey. Corey screaming, gesticulating, spitting, glowering in his sinister way... and Corey and his middle fingers..a lot of those. I like those. Especially this one, cuz he's totally flipping me off.
Oh, lookie at this shot... he was just adjusting his shirt... but I happened to be adjusting my lens, hehe. Me likey.
And this one because it rules...
And this one... just because. O_O
And this one because I was not afraid! And screamed back in his face...
And got misted, again lol...
And... then... ok, yeah, I'll stop... I'm stopping... I stopped. They're all in the slideshow. o_O
Anyway, I present the video for the 5 songs that I did capture, here for your viewing pleasure. And in the interest of the time/space continuum and your attention span, I'll let them speak for themselves rather than continue rattling on trying to describe the indescribable. As explained previously, these amazing high-quality clips are the culprit to my radio silence for the past month... so, though I know you my lovelies are not maggots per se... you just have to check them out a little bit and make it worth while for me... it's been pure torture! I made a youtube playlist for them... they're all five starers. They got picked up by facebook fangroups and two different fansites. Here's the news entry on OpiumOfThePeople.net, one of my favorite places on the web. I know, I know, total braggadocio... but is good sauce!
Duality... bummed that I didn't get it from the start... the whole crowd sang their hearts out on it.
People = Shit... Fucking brutal and totally vintage 'knot.
Snuff... yeah, my sentiments about this song are already well documented elsewhere. When they came back on and started with this for the encore.. I about cried, heh. -_-'
Surfacing... OMFG at the opening minute of this... fucking a, that is just epic build-up. If you don't watch any of these vids, at least watch the first minute of this motherfucker. Legend.
So... last song. Ready for the heartbreaker...? Sure you are. Okay. Spit It Out is the song during every show in which the "Zero Bullshit" is conducted... which is basically just an awesome display of complete control over a fuckin feral audience and the raw power and spectacle of a mass of maggots acting as one. You have to just watch it... it never ceases to thrill me. Anyway, so back to the downer.. At the most inopportune moment... everyone has exploded and is jumping the fuck up... the pit is going ballistic... I'm thrashing and loving it... I'm clenching the camera with my right hand like Susan Lucci with a fuckin Emmy, while bracing myself with the left on the rail.... Joey's up there starting to really get his fucking spin on... and I'm gonna record every second of it... except. Boom. My camera goes blank. No lights. No screen. Dead. Noooooo! Turns out I was holding it so tightly and my grip was so tenuous that I disengaged the battery carriage. Yeah. Can you say "uber bummer"? 6 times? With a fat lip? Man... took a few seconds before I could figure out what the bloody hell I had done and fix it. Thus the choppy triple installments on youtube and a chunk of the badassery missing. T_T *excuses herself and wanders off to regain composure*
Spit It Out... one of the most insane moments ever... the definition of sic and awesome.
Goddamn... watching these clips is like reliving it. Insanity... so perfect.
Anywho... you can see during the outro as "Till We Die" is played, the original maggots are up there tossing shit into the crowd. I wasn't overly rabid, having just been fully climaxed, hehe... but I was looking to catch something if it came my way. In the end I did get my hands on a flower from the bouquet on 3's drumkit... I put it in my hair. And yeah, I pressed it. ^-^ And Mary Ann accidentally caught 2's pick! In her cleavage! I was like, "Holy heavenly mammaries, saweet!" I told her how it belonged to the bassist, Paul..The Pig ... who is the fuckin balls and that he's #2 and that's why it has a 2 on it and how it's this real thick jazz pick.. lol. She totally gave it to me right then and there. I didn't ask for it or nothing either. Awesome. It's in me 'knot lockbox. I dunno if I'll ever actually use it... I'm a chronic pick buster on the axe, so... maybe just a little.
So as the crowd started to disperse and the front 4 rows or so are hugging and talking and so on, I finally managed to find Mich. It was pretty cool. You wonder if it'll be weird meeting someone in the flesh for the first time, even though you're friends. It's totally not. It's great, it's easy. In this day in age, I think virtual friendship can pretty much be the real thing. Nothing beats an in the flesh hug though and we picked each other up and spun around, it was so cheesy hehe. We got to hang out for a few hours too. I got a total kick out of her krazeh head and New Yawkuh wordage. I of course bugged her about what it was like meeting the masked marauders... it was incredible of course, and they are the coolest most good natured and down to earth dudes... is true, yes. I found out that she had actually given 3 (Chris) the bouquet of flowers out of which the one that was on my head came from. That was a pretty neat coinky dink. Some shots of us douching it up later that night. Doobie dweebs.
Oh, and check out me shirt that I was wearing... it's the tee that came in the 10th anniversary box set I mentioned in my 9/9/9 entry. It's so sic, I love this shirt.
The legendary chorus to Wait and Bleed, the barcode, and People=Shit for good measure, it rulez. In the truck on the way to Vegas I modded it out and made it one of a kind. I already had my patches sewn on the sleeves... the 10year one and my OT9er. But it bugged me that it didn't really fit, even though it was the small that I asked for. Why is the cool shit never in my goddamn size? Someone gave me the idea to cut 5 inch strips out of it on either side and then lace it back up. So I had thrown a pair of scissors in my bag. Well... after I got over the shock of taking scissors to my limited edition t-shirt O_O... I think it worked out pretty sweet. And I only sliced up my hands a lot. Blood adds to the character though. So do the Reeces peanut butter stains. That's why I always wear black kiddies. :P
So there it is, one of the single most amazing experiences ever. One of, man. It's up there. With like, being fucking born. And my son being born... and a few other things actually, hehe. But jeeeeezus, it was the shit. I was so insanely relaxed for days afterward... like a pressure valve had just been kranked wide. Just light, you know? It was total release for me. That's what music is for me anyway, but this... was euphoria. Total orgasmic violent catharsis. I'm addicted to it now. I can't tell you how much I needed it... how much it meant to me. It truly is like a religious experience. And as a friend so eloquently put it, I got to look death in the face and tell him to go fuck himself at the top of my lungs. For true, well said. I got to rip myself open and let everything come screaming out. Yes, it was all that and more, believe it.
I think though, that getting my concert cherry popped by the 'knot on such a historic night is gonna pretty much backfire on me forever now. I mean... I'm ravaged... ravaged and ruined. Nothing else is ever gonna measure up.
While I'm at it, congratulations to teh man Corey and his girl Steph...
..they just tied the knot (no pun intended)a couple weeks after the show. Get this... November, Friday the 13th, cha... and... and at the Pearl no less! And what's more, they walked down the aisle to fuckin "For Whom The Bells Toll". How badass is that? That's fuckin badass.
And with that, I'm spent. I spank you for wading through this. I know it was a doozy. What can I say, it may be possible for me to break the netz... but wordpad sat there compliant and operative for a whole month. It just grew. *sheepish* So yeah, all in all it was... as far as first concerts go, you know... it was alright. :P
# of x's the epithet Legend or Legendary is bestowed = 4
# of x's the term EPIC is utilized = 6
# of x's the concept of awesomality is referenced = 12
# of x's passive voice or other syntactical literary transgressions occurred = not a one. What?
# of x's you checked to see how much longer this freakin thesis was = ??
# of x's Slipknot - in one form or another - is lovingly/neurotically spelled out = 26
(I was gonna count the profanity, but I gave up. No fuckin way, hehe)
Alright, so what follows here is pretty much a full account of my night at the Trinity of Terrors in Vegas for Slipknot's last tour stop. I wrote it shortly after with weird dimension bending premonitions of future nostalgia for my very first concert experience, hehe. So, while I would love for you to read it and enjoy it, you would not be at all remiss to just viddy the pics or videos or what not. Because, while your time and time in actuality is relative and illusory, it is alas, somehow still finite. And this is several parchment feet worth of recounting. ^-^ Is a bit late...Been meaning to post it since last month... work, holidays, the usual shit I guess. >_<
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So, as anyone who knows me knows (or knows someone I know... or came within an 87 mile radius of me... or who got lost on the interwebz) I got to go to Slipknot's EPIC show in Vegas on Halloween. The last 'knot show of the All Hope Is Gone album cycle. Yes. Not many moons ago, heh more on that later. Dude.. I have yet to fully wrap my head around the night, so I'm taking this step by step. Go ahead and laugh at me, I know I'm geeking out. But oh my fucking god, I'm still buzzing.. even now, with most of the bruises faded and the scrapes nicely scabbed, and all the regular shit crowding back in... I'm still walking around higher than space junk! Why it has taken me so long to make this entry is a combination of the inanity and mundanity of life, plus a generous sprinkling of herzelied... and a big steaming pile of FAPPED. Cha. For those who are unfamiliar with this insidious and cruel practice, that's the nasty four letter word its victims use for the technique which is applied after a violation of the "Fair Access Policy" has occurred... in other words, I (unwittingly) exceeded my bandwidth use and therefore have had my internet access restricted. More like eliminated. Unlike my previous experiences with this heinous policy where I exceeded my download limits e.g. viewing pictures, streaming video, downloading tunage... you know, surfing the damn web... this time, I exceeded my upload limit. Something I'd never come even close to doing before and didn't even think that I could. And guess how I did it my lovelies...? Yes, that's right, by uploading my concert footage to youtube. Fuck this shit. I've been paying an exorbitant amount of the cashish for years for something I barely ever used and the one time I have a need for it and I get my ass kicked. Anyway, there's still a FAP ticket on my account so my access is extremely limited... they throttled me waaaay down, worse than ever before. I can basically only connect (at glacier speed) during non-peak hours... which is pretty much anytime after fucking 2am till sometime a little later in the morning. And even then, basically I can only get into my email inbox. The only reason you are seeing this entry is, a) because I was stubborn and lucky enough to force it through or b) because the mandatory one month term in solitary confinement has finally elapsed and I'm out of the red. Prolly more like the latter, being that LJ will not load if my damn life depended on it. Fuck. Hey! Guess what?! Guess what! I still got all my motherfucking video up before being ground down by the ugly bandwidth gestapos' boot, so fuck them!
But never mind all that right now. This could not be stopped. And this is about Slipknot... and it was the fucking shit. Please continue.
Ok, so we arrive in Vegas and make our way to The Palms casino... I should explain the "we", huh? Heh, right... I was with 2 of me broskis... my lil bro Jimi and older bro Sean and also his girlfriend (and my good friend/most-likely-sis-to-be) Mary Ann. My bra Sean is a long time maggot too while Jim Sum only figured it out far more recently... between Sean and I we managed to corrupt his immaculate little mind and convert him into full-on metalhead only in the past 8 months or so. Pretty succinctly done, I must say. Once it starts it can't be stopped, mwahahaha! And Mary Ann... actually I don't think she was all that into the N9ne... at least not the majority of their work. I believe that may have changed that night though. Hellz yes. Anyway... so we arrive at the Palms... and see this magnificent sight.
Did the predictable yet still cool pic beneath the badassery.
Then we headed inside. The place was krazy busy already even that early in the day. Of course the Fangoria Trinity of Terrors festival festivities were happening all day so they were mostly peeps attending the movie screenings and Q&A's with horror movie legends etc etc. You could easily tell who they were because they were mostly dressed to the nines in costume for Halloween or were otherwise alternative and cool looking cats. So first thing we did was scope out the entry area to The Pearl which is this awesome intimate concert venue beneath the Palms... the entrance to it is on the casino floor, and then you travel down, into the earth. Anywho, there were like 3 'knot-shirt-wearing kids loitering there but otherwise no real sign of the threat of a huge mass of dedicated maggots looking to queue up super early. So we wander off and take in the sights.
Meanwhile I'm texting a friend and fellow maggot that I have known for a good long time online but had never met. She had flown across the country to take in the epicness and we were trying to find each other there. This wasn't to happen till later though. I should mention that the scale of legend this event had already achieved resulted in maggots from all over the world flying in to be there... Canada, England, Switzerland.. all over... this was huge. Which I was fully aware of. And stoked that I was getting to see this show... but also apprehensive about the possibility of not getting my spot in front (which I had already claimed within my amazing brain) considering I'd be contending with such dedicated fans. So no matter what I was doing that afternoon I circled back to that entrance regular-like to see who was there.
Anyway... we killed some time by taking in a movie and doing a little of the inevitable shopping... I confess to buying the double dvd set of Ice Age Dawn of the Dinasaurs/Scrat Pack and Coraline to bring home to me nugget (he loves, btw), another awesome Joker t-shirt, a Jack Skellington belt, new 16 gauge stainless steel rings for all 8 of my ear piercings, and this SIC and sexy 'knot wallet that I pull out and flash all the time now - even when it's empty or I have absolutely no need to, hehe. I also got a chance to sit down with my Touch once I found a hot spot and read the previous days episode of the NS. It was krazy... I sat there sputtering and scrolling and re-reading and laughing and scratching my head and re-reading and guffawing... all the while as the freaks and ho's walked by in there Halloween outfits. It was one of the single most surreal experiences of my life. Spank you, CaelBim. ^O^
A note here... since the day I saw this date on Slipknot's tour page and had complete bladder evacuation, I had been contemplating/plotting/planning on some how getting my camera into the concert... even though it stated clearly and explicitly on the Pearl website that recording devices were not permitted. There were about two chances I was gonna pay heed to that... no chance and a dogs chance. There was no doubt I was shoving my camera in my shoe or my panties or wherever... no, the question now was whether or not we were gonna risk bringing in Mary Ann's awesome camera as well. The worry was that if they found it on us that we'd would have to get out of line and go check it in etc... was it worth it? Sean decided to go ask the security guards and personnel straight up. He found out that, according to a guard it was a vehement "NO. Absolutely no cameras permitted." He got a second opinion from a girl at the ticket desk who said "Only cell phone cameras." He came back pretty convinced and dejected. He also told me that the guard had gone on to say that it all depended on the artist's wishes and that Slipknot were extremely strict about that policy. I called bullshit right away. I knew that was a bold-faced lie... you don't follow a band as long as I have the 'knot and not know something like that about them. And being the only member of OT9 at the table, I told them about how many fan pics were all over their own website/forum/fan section and what not... but I was unable to convince them. So we put her camera in the truck.
It was around 3pm that I noticed that my heart rate was pretty much permanently up. For real. I couldn't fuckin believe that I was finally going to see these motherfuckers rip a place apart. I was so stoked. It's an intense feeling when your chest is in that state for a prolonged period of time... feels really good, yet frightening in a way.
Then we made another pass at the entrance and noticed several more peeps standing there... and even though there was still nearly 2 hrs to the show we figured it was time to queue up and be among the first handful. Only to find a couple minutes later that a guard comes over and says that there would be no queuing up or loitering until 15 minutes till 7... which was when the doors would officially open. I looked at the guard and said, "Are you fucking krazy?! You're gonna have a bloody stampede on your hands!" Apparently he didn't respond to such insolence because I didn't get an answer. So everyone broke up... pissed me off let me tell ya. If I had known that I wouldn't have been rushing back there every fucking half hour all day.
Meanwhile, I was feeling kind of bummed that I still hadn't met up with my girl Mich and she wasn't anywhere to be found... and she had stopped responding to my text's. (Found out later that the krazy chica had managed to pass out already, lol) I knew that around the time I was down in the pit watching the opening act, the lucky biyotch was gonna be experiencing the fucking meet&greet with fucking Slipknot... because her name was drawn in the fucking lottery and not mine! *big violent dry-heaving sob* Anyfuckingway! So we went and ate and then I put on the boots that I had in the truck bed... I had thrown them in my bag just in case. I figured if it turned out I was stuck behind tons of people, which it was now looking like that might be the case, at least with my chunky 3inch heels I would be able to see just as much as the 3 freakin tallies I had come with. :P And then we were back again and getting shooed off again along with all the other stubborn line loiterers. We took to wandering right there among the slots and pretending that we weren't ready to freakin pounce, heh.
Okay... I'ma get a little anecdotal real quick so hang tight... we're getting ready to queue up any minute, right? And I think... hell I better go for a piss before hand. So I grab Mary Ann's arm and we head to the lavatory... I dunno why it's always a herd thing when females pop-a-squat btw. I've not analyzed it too much yet, so I'll get back to you. (Shit, that was like a footnote inside an anecdote... that's just a wormhole waiting to happen, yeeesh) Anyway, so there I am doing my thing and taking a pee (Damn... that was for you Crypty lol) and I go to wipe... and I look down... and my blob of Wrigley's found a new home on the tiled floor. You've got to be fucking kidding me.... The bloody red river...?! Now?! A friggin week early, at least. I totally sat there in the stall and yelled "Judas Fucking Priest, What The Fuck!" I hear Mary Ann all worried "What happened?!" Cha... then she laughed. And then a few seconds later she's all, "Oh shit... I've been feeling crampy" I said "yeah smartass, that insta-karma is a bitch, yo?" lol we practically live together, so we're on the rag around the same time every month, same as with my sis... so she knows better! (Hey, there's that herd shit again. o_O) Back to the timeline, I was pretty much incredulous at that point, wandering around trying to find a damn jam rag... it was only later sometime that morning before I passed out, 4AM-ish, that I started to piece it together. In that span of about oh 24 seconds or so I thought (and sorry for all the TMI but..) for the past few years I've pretty much been on the same cycle as the full moon. But for the last few months, a day here and a day there, I've gotten further and further off it till it pretty much no longer applied.
Well, girls and boils, the moon was only 2 days away from being full that Halloween night...
and to add to the 'knot's orchestrated reign of blood and fright...
as I stood in the elevator en-route to my hotel room at the Eastside Cannery that night...
low and behold I look up at a spooktacular and glowing orange sight...
the 13th fucking floor - room 1321.... I shit you not.
Good lord.. I just laughed my ass off writing that. Who the fuck do I think I am getting all Tim Burton on ya, eh? I suck. 'Twas funny sauce though. And fuckin kreepy! Moving on!
So finally we make it back to the doors and are livid to find that a big ass line had formed even though it's not even near the time the guard had specified. The boys had managed to get in there among the first 30 or so people though, so Mary Ann made it look good and rushed in and kissed Sean... I just held her hand and stink-eyed the guys glaring at me cutting in. An undead queen of hearts that I had been talking to when we queued up hours earlier totally vouched for me then, and I was good. But about to give someone a real chunk of my mind seeing as we were now not going to get in the front row even though we had been there since the fucking AM. As I stood there stewing for the remaining time wondering how I might go about causing a scene because of how unjust this shit was.... an amazing thing happened... an entrance personal person came down the line yelling out "guys form a line on the right, and girls on the left" Suddenly there were about five girls in front of me and Mary Ann as all the guys jammed themselves over to the right! The perks of being a hardcore metal-chick, dude. There just aren't that many of us. \oo/ The actual fairness and ramifications of this practice is not lost on me... it was totally fair in my case but I'm pretty certain there must have been some pissed off dudes considering that meant the females snapped up most of the front section. Ah well... where was I? Oh yeah, I yelled over to Sean to "find us!" and Mary Ann and I took off like speed freaks on 'roids who had suddenly found themselves in the carpool lane. We get to the door where a woman requests to see our tickets... so I whip mine out from my brandspankinnew SIC and sexy 'knot wallet and she scans it, and then a woman right behind her says "please empty your pockets and stand here"... she then proceeds to frisk. Except this is no frisk... this is so light and un-thorough it wouldn't even make the most hyper-sensitive sex-starved uber-pervert get even the slightest tingle in their nether regions. So I'm in my head, thinking... "I have a small bust, and a relatively bulky camera... and that thing is perfectly safe where it's stashed in my boobcups. Damn."
Meanwhile outside my head in the somewhat less disturbing reality, Mary Ann and I make our way down what was at least 4 or 5 flights of stairs, running not walking despite the guards on each landing telling us to do so. Pa-shaw... no fuckin way. And I must say I did rather well in my clunkers. Finally we make it to the last floor and are greeted with one last check where we get our paper bracelets and then... we enter The Pearl:
Not the greatest shot, but I wanted to show you how tiny the place is. 2000 people capacity. Pretty fuckin awesome.
At that point though, the place only has a few GA people inside and we go straight for the stage... there's already a group huddled there, which I knew there would be. I recognized lots of them... and they were all OT9ers... OT9ers who were legit hardcore maggots... OT9ers from out of state and far away... OT9ers with early entry passes. But I see a spot right in front that's open... it's slightly left of center and only one row deep. We're all up in there. There's a couple girls in front of us and they say hi and introduce themselves and I do so back and there's a lot of "Oh! You're her?! That's you? Cool! Nice to meet you in person!" etc. which was pretty excellent. I don't hangout online with them enough to really know them... I don't have the time for that, man O_O... but it was cool enough. So I was standing behind this girl from Jersey who was, get this... shorter than me! She's tiny, right? I'm standing there looking at the stage and it's like I'm in the first row... and I'm not even pressed up against her yet. So I'm fuckin stoked. Mary Ann and I go about trying to make a pocket of space with our limbs while looking towards the entrance where peeps are pouring in. Finally we spot the boys and wave them over... and they manage to get in behind us.
So we're all set and freaking out about how fucking close to the stage we are, and how badass the backdrop on the stage is... and making out 1, 3 and 6's drumsets and hydraulics hidden under giant black sheets on the stage. And then I look at Sean and said "We could have gotten the camera in dude... no fucking problem." He's all "I know... I can't believe they didn't wand us. Fuckin A." I stand there thinking for half a second and then I'm like "I'm going to get it." He's shaking his head "No way. It's like a mile! You'd have to go back up all those stairs, through the casino, out the front and around the side to the elevator, and take that up to our level in the parking garage and find the truck. And then come back. Plus it'll be packed down here by then!" Stubborn ass that I am I put out my hand "Gimme the keys." He's shaking his head still, even as he hands them to me "oh shit"... I'm gone. Going against the tide as the milieu rush in. Now I'm not particularly in shape... I mean, I keep pretty fit but I could do a helluva lot more. But I killed it that night. I was back in front of that prudish frisker with a camera stuffed in my boot so fuckin fast, I prolly alerted security and had all the plain-clothes cops wandering around completely on edge. But Slipknot already has that effect on places... what's one more psychotic maggot, eh? Hehe... So I make it all the way down and back in and it's pretty fuckin full, but I'm not panicking... I'm tiny and I could squeeze my way back to the front. I got held up only a couple times, especially trying to get by the this big burly bearded man... dressed as Heidi. I told him he looked lovely and to let me pass. I admit I also got a little distracted passing guys with 'knot masks on... they're awfully realistic. Most of them were official masks that you can buy from the band site... I think I want a few now. I told one guy that I passed who was wearing a #8 mask that he'd better bloody well represent. And finally I spot a lit up cell screen that Sean's waving in the air and I'm back with my (somewhat incredulous) peeps. I produce the goods and hand it to Sean. The plan is, he'll film while I get pics.
Before long it's pretty full inside and the roadies are up on stage preparing for the openers Visions of Disorder. I yelled out to one wearing a Mastodon hoodie and flashed the devil horns. Soon the lights went down and VoD took the stage. I hadn't heard much of them before... they're a pretty good hardcore band. Vocals were intense and there was great energy and punk metal attitude. Ultimately it was only a warm up for the 'knot of course. The frontman acknowledged that a few songs in with great respect and appreciation, to deafening applause. They played one more track and bowed out.
Then the anticipation began to build in earnest. There was a hum of activity on stage. The oh so familiar and friendly smell of cannabis virtually permeated the venue at this point... I began to fancy that the smoke billowing from the stage was spiked. Slipknot had just come from the Smoke Out Fest in socal after all, hehe. Music is being pumped out... and I'm counting the minutes. At one point, eons later it seemed, "Running with the Devil" begins, and I'm singing along... little did I know this would be the intro song. The track ends. The lights go down...
Then finally begins the sound of the intro to Slipknot's infamous debut album... the indignant voice of a woman saying "the whole thing, I think, is sick." being looped over and over and over... (funfact: twas lifted off a Charles Manson documentary.) And then I start to see the unmistakable shapes emerge on stage.... 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.... all taking their places. Then last 8 slowly comes forth and they're all there. Still and ominous... glaring at the crowd.
It was like a rubber band about to snap when finally Sic begins. Holy fuck. Immersion complete. I was so warmed up at that point I was done for from the first riff, it was embarrassing lol. I was transported... I just let go and fell into each song. Screaming every word at the top of my lungs. Which, when it comes to 'knot songs, isn't all that easy, really heh. The aural intensity was just monstrous though, and it made hearing yourself damn near impossible.. it was liberating. And that feeling... you know that sensation that the incredibly intense reverberating bass and massive percussion is originating from within your own chest... guh. So here comes the setlist... unfuckingbelievably awesome assault of awesomeness. A lot of the usual suspects, but I wouldn't have it any other way on that night. Check it...
Sic
Eyeless
Wait & Bleed
Get This
Before I Forget
Sulfur
The Blister Exists
Dead Memories
Disasterpeice
Vermilion
Psychosocial
Duality
People = Shit
Snuff
Surfacing
Spit It Out
Pure distilled beautiful violence. Epic. The whole set ran, maybe an hour and 45 minutes or so. I didn't want it to end. Stating high points would be pretty redundant, considering if I got any higher then I was the entire night the golden umbilical cord would have snapped, lol... but, I will say that - going apeshit during Get This - getting treated to Vermilion - getting bludgeoned during psychofuckingsocial - hearing the entire crowd sing the opening lines of duality a capella - screaming "people equal shit" - hearing and seeing Snuff live - shredding the shirt of a crowd surfer who kicked me in the head - chanting fuck me - I'm all out of enemies with 2000 other maggots with our fingers in the air - the zero bullshit jump the fuck up - seeing the Nine do their thing right there, so close I got spit it on - and just being there with my peeps and maggots... that was pretty fuckin sweet.
I snapped shots here and there with my camera. It was pretty impossible, being krushed from all sides... Mary Ann had ended up squeezed up behind me, and I was thoroughly pressed up against Ali, the girl in front of me... it was a full on tag team threesome spooning and I could pretty much only get my right arm half way out most of the time. And I knew that with the khaos behind me that Sean was mostly just trying to stay in place and shield us as much as he could from the throng... and that there was no way he was filming anything. But it wasn't until well nigh on the back half of the show before I managed to crane my neck back far enough to catch the attention of my brother and convey that I wanted the other camera. He shook his head and screamed that he couldn't get it out of his pocket. I did my best puppy dog eyes and mouthed "ok" and turned back to the spectacle. It wasn't a couple minutes later when I noticed this red camera bouncing around in my peripheral view... I realized who's camera and who's hand it was that was trying to pass it to me and snatched it. I turned that bad boy on right away and started recording. Duality had more or less just begun.... and I recorded from there to the very end. I'm only sorry I didn't get the whole night... would've been amazing to have it from front to back. What I did get is spectacular, it really is. A few times I'd see Sean's hand and pass the camera to him and he'd get big high sweeping shots and pass it back to me, it was incredible. Now, this is beside the point, but I'm gonna go ahead and state that my footage is some of the very best bootlegged video of a Slipknot show on the web, ever... and easily the best of this show. Front row, fantastic HD clarity, and the sound is actually pretty amazing... normally a little camera like that doesn't have a mic on it that can handle those decibels without being fuzzed out... amazing. It's just a little Canon PowerShot SD780-IS but it's got something like 12.1 megapixels. I love this camera. I will get one for meself one day, it's excellent.
I made a slideshow of stills on Flickr. They're all down-res so it's fast... there's some uber frames too. Looksee.
Here's some choice shots...
Joey and his insane kit...
Clown with his drums fully extended...
Mick looking like the total axe murderer that he is and a pretty good one of Paul...
Jim doing kickass hair-whipping headbanging...
I love this one of Sid...I didn't get see too much of him as he was on the other side of the stage most of the time... except when he was going totally apeshit and swinging off the side of Clowns hydraulics as they went up... and once when he came over and fucked with Craig and tried to deck him...
Chris hitting mach freakin 5 with his nose in true Pornoccio badassery...
Epic triple-growl at the opening of People = Shit...
Clown doing his filmmaker thing... hey, maybe I'll be on a future DVD ^-^...
Here's the whole slideshow... I love this first one. The colors, and both Joey and Clown with their arms up, Mick staring someone down, Corey all dead-center and in focus, plus the Pearl security guard. He was cool... poured water in my mouth several times... plus he had those awesome Manson-ish eye contacts in. The rest of them just looked like they hated their jobs, heh... maybe they just hated the knot. Dum fux.
Quite a few good ones... not exactly pro-quality, but I think I might even be able to use some as my resources, which would be awesome. There's even a few of the ever elusive Craig, you can see him with his spikes in the background. Kinda, hehe. There's a few awkward angled ones in there of myself and posse jam-packed in the pit. And of course a lot of Corey. Corey screaming, gesticulating, spitting, glowering in his sinister way... and Corey and his middle fingers..a lot of those. I like those. Especially this one, cuz he's totally flipping me off.
Oh, lookie at this shot... he was just adjusting his shirt... but I happened to be adjusting my lens, hehe. Me likey.
And this one because it rules...
And this one... just because. O_O
And this one because I was not afraid! And screamed back in his face...
And got misted, again lol...
And... then... ok, yeah, I'll stop... I'm stopping... I stopped. They're all in the slideshow. o_O
Anyway, I present the video for the 5 songs that I did capture, here for your viewing pleasure. And in the interest of the time/space continuum and your attention span, I'll let them speak for themselves rather than continue rattling on trying to describe the indescribable. As explained previously, these amazing high-quality clips are the culprit to my radio silence for the past month... so, though I know you my lovelies are not maggots per se... you just have to check them out a little bit and make it worth while for me... it's been pure torture! I made a youtube playlist for them... they're all five starers. They got picked up by facebook fangroups and two different fansites. Here's the news entry on OpiumOfThePeople.net, one of my favorite places on the web. I know, I know, total braggadocio... but is good sauce!
Duality... bummed that I didn't get it from the start... the whole crowd sang their hearts out on it.
Click to viewPeople = Shit... Fucking brutal and totally vintage 'knot.
Snuff... yeah, my sentiments about this song are already well documented elsewhere. When they came back on and started with this for the encore.. I about cried, heh. -_-'
Surfacing... OMFG at the opening minute of this... fucking a, that is just epic build-up. If you don't watch any of these vids, at least watch the first minute of this motherfucker. Legend.
So... last song. Ready for the heartbreaker...? Sure you are. Okay. Spit It Out is the song during every show in which the "Zero Bullshit" is conducted... which is basically just an awesome display of complete control over a fuckin feral audience and the raw power and spectacle of a mass of maggots acting as one. You have to just watch it... it never ceases to thrill me. Anyway, so back to the downer.. At the most inopportune moment... everyone has exploded and is jumping the fuck up... the pit is going ballistic... I'm thrashing and loving it... I'm clenching the camera with my right hand like Susan Lucci with a fuckin Emmy, while bracing myself with the left on the rail.... Joey's up there starting to really get his fucking spin on... and I'm gonna record every second of it... except. Boom. My camera goes blank. No lights. No screen. Dead. Noooooo! Turns out I was holding it so tightly and my grip was so tenuous that I disengaged the battery carriage. Yeah. Can you say "uber bummer"? 6 times? With a fat lip? Man... took a few seconds before I could figure out what the bloody hell I had done and fix it. Thus the choppy triple installments on youtube and a chunk of the badassery missing. T_T *excuses herself and wanders off to regain composure*
Spit It Out... one of the most insane moments ever... the definition of sic and awesome.
Goddamn... watching these clips is like reliving it. Insanity... so perfect.
Anywho... you can see during the outro as "Till We Die" is played, the original maggots are up there tossing shit into the crowd. I wasn't overly rabid, having just been fully climaxed, hehe... but I was looking to catch something if it came my way. In the end I did get my hands on a flower from the bouquet on 3's drumkit... I put it in my hair. And yeah, I pressed it. ^-^ And Mary Ann accidentally caught 2's pick! In her cleavage! I was like, "Holy heavenly mammaries, saweet!" I told her how it belonged to the bassist, Paul..The Pig ... who is the fuckin balls and that he's #2 and that's why it has a 2 on it and how it's this real thick jazz pick.. lol. She totally gave it to me right then and there. I didn't ask for it or nothing either. Awesome. It's in me 'knot lockbox. I dunno if I'll ever actually use it... I'm a chronic pick buster on the axe, so... maybe just a little.
So as the crowd started to disperse and the front 4 rows or so are hugging and talking and so on, I finally managed to find Mich. It was pretty cool. You wonder if it'll be weird meeting someone in the flesh for the first time, even though you're friends. It's totally not. It's great, it's easy. In this day in age, I think virtual friendship can pretty much be the real thing. Nothing beats an in the flesh hug though and we picked each other up and spun around, it was so cheesy hehe. We got to hang out for a few hours too. I got a total kick out of her krazeh head and New Yawkuh wordage. I of course bugged her about what it was like meeting the masked marauders... it was incredible of course, and they are the coolest most good natured and down to earth dudes... is true, yes. I found out that she had actually given 3 (Chris) the bouquet of flowers out of which the one that was on my head came from. That was a pretty neat coinky dink. Some shots of us douching it up later that night. Doobie dweebs.
Oh, and check out me shirt that I was wearing... it's the tee that came in the 10th anniversary box set I mentioned in my 9/9/9 entry. It's so sic, I love this shirt.
The legendary chorus to Wait and Bleed, the barcode, and People=Shit for good measure, it rulez. In the truck on the way to Vegas I modded it out and made it one of a kind. I already had my patches sewn on the sleeves... the 10year one and my OT9er. But it bugged me that it didn't really fit, even though it was the small that I asked for. Why is the cool shit never in my goddamn size? Someone gave me the idea to cut 5 inch strips out of it on either side and then lace it back up. So I had thrown a pair of scissors in my bag. Well... after I got over the shock of taking scissors to my limited edition t-shirt O_O... I think it worked out pretty sweet. And I only sliced up my hands a lot. Blood adds to the character though. So do the Reeces peanut butter stains. That's why I always wear black kiddies. :P
So there it is, one of the single most amazing experiences ever. One of, man. It's up there. With like, being fucking born. And my son being born... and a few other things actually, hehe. But jeeeeezus, it was the shit. I was so insanely relaxed for days afterward... like a pressure valve had just been kranked wide. Just light, you know? It was total release for me. That's what music is for me anyway, but this... was euphoria. Total orgasmic violent catharsis. I'm addicted to it now. I can't tell you how much I needed it... how much it meant to me. It truly is like a religious experience. And as a friend so eloquently put it, I got to look death in the face and tell him to go fuck himself at the top of my lungs. For true, well said. I got to rip myself open and let everything come screaming out. Yes, it was all that and more, believe it.
I think though, that getting my concert cherry popped by the 'knot on such a historic night is gonna pretty much backfire on me forever now. I mean... I'm ravaged... ravaged and ruined. Nothing else is ever gonna measure up.
While I'm at it, congratulations to teh man Corey and his girl Steph...
..they just tied the knot (no pun intended)a couple weeks after the show. Get this... November, Friday the 13th, cha... and... and at the Pearl no less! And what's more, they walked down the aisle to fuckin "For Whom The Bells Toll". How badass is that? That's fuckin badass.
And with that, I'm spent. I spank you for wading through this. I know it was a doozy. What can I say, it may be possible for me to break the netz... but wordpad sat there compliant and operative for a whole month. It just grew. *sheepish* So yeah, all in all it was... as far as first concerts go, you know... it was alright. :P
# of x's the epithet Legend or Legendary is bestowed = 4
# of x's the term EPIC is utilized = 6
# of x's the concept of awesomality is referenced = 12
# of x's passive voice or other syntactical literary transgressions occurred = not a one. What?
# of x's you checked to see how much longer this freakin thesis was = ??
# of x's Slipknot - in one form or another - is lovingly/neurotically spelled out = 26
(I was gonna count the profanity, but I gave up. No fuckin way, hehe)