Machine Head
Children Of Bodom
Hammersmith Apollo
02.12.08
When Children Of Bodom took English classes, they clearly stopped going after the lesson that taught them the word “motherfucker”. Littering their set came calls of “Do you want to hear some fucking metal motherfuckers” which proved quite entertaining in lieu of any great deal of stage presence. That said, the band did belt out some good tracks, the fan favourite Silent Night Bodom Night getting the biggest reaction of all and Bodom coped well with the difficult task of playing to a sea of faces who simply wanted Rob Flynn and Corey Taylor’s men on stage.
Machine fucking Head took to the stage after a solid five minutes of the expletive driven crowd baying for their appearance and tore the roof off with straight up metal. Imperium, with its military style drum beat, sent the pit into its first workout of the evening and a mixture of old and new kept the energy up throughout the set. Flynn took to drinking a sip from each drink before lobbing it into the crowd and when he looked over to the far side of the front of the venue, he implored the crowd there to start headbanging because “it’s not a fucking Good Charlotte show, man”. Bloody right too.
Then came the main event. A black curtain covered the stage and once lifted, delirium kicked in. Shawn Crahan’s percussion kit lofted high into the air, cameras on either side displaying a variety of angles of the crowd and stage on a widescreen T attached to the front of his set-up, DJ Sid Wilson hanging off the keg with one arm, fire shooting up from the back of the stage, it was as perfect a stage show as you could ever wish for. Slipknot were most definitely in the building.
Corey Taylor, a lot chattier than I expected [I was a Slipknot gig virgin], was a great frontman, demanding the crowd crank the volume up to outdo the noise level from the night before and after ripping through tracks such as Eyeless, Eeyore, Psychosocial, People = Shit and (sic), there was no way the packed Apollo could have been any louder. The highlight of the night was the legendary crowd-crouching. Standing on the balcony looking down it was a sight to behold as an ocean of fans crouched down low [save the solitary dickhead who got a pummelling a few seconds later] and, on Taylor’s say so, let carnage break loose as the maggots launched skywards for the meaty portion of the track.
Last night, the 18-legged raging machine proved that they were the most entertaining metal band around simply for their stage show alone and they show no signs of letting up. People might equal shit, but Iowa’s finest certainly don’t.
Abjekt.