The Subliminal Verses Tour was in full force Sunday night March the 6th at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and Sea of Tranquility's Ken Pierce and Pete Pardo were on hand to see and hear all the metal mayhem from Shadows Fall, Lamb of God, and headliners Slipknot. It was a night of thrash, death, and nu-metal styles, and you can read all the details right here!
The Slipknot show at Continental Airlines Arena would prove to start with both an interesting as well as annnoying twist. Of the four bands performing, Gizmachi was set to kick it off and the tickets showed a start of 7:00 pm. On walking in at exactly that time we were told by ushers that Gizmachi had played three songs about 30 minutes ago. It is not fair to the audience who pays for the ticket or the band who expects a decent crowd to be there for a show such as this. Instead people were probably wondering why Gizmachi shirts were onsale since they had missed them and were unaware they even played. This band in particular is a discovery of the "Clown"
member in Slipknot, so you would think the venue would allot some accommodation. I imagine it beneficial to generate a buzz in a new CD that is coming out. This cant help it at all.
It was also interesting to look around the venue and find it not overly crowded. Given Slipknot's overall appeal to the metal fans, and then combine that with the chance to see Shadows Fall and Lamb Of God on the same bill this was odd. Looking inside the venue to the top section, one could see a black curtain draped around the entire structure. This means that not one seat was sold for the entire area. Now that's a lot of empty seats and it would have seemed bad had it not been covered up. Also random scatters of
empty sections which did not fill even at Slipknot's time were very visible. At best guess, perhaps half the arena was filled, which is alarming considering that Slipknot filled this same arena just a few short years ago. I am not sure how or why this is the case, but we made the best of it and still rocked hard.
So we walked in on the beginning of Shadows Fall and this is one band that does the job of bringing old and new metal together. Clearly they are going to be among the big names in metal if people know what is good for them. Their music is definately packed with a punch and shows some great skills, as they combine elements of thrash, prog-metal, as well as old school early 80's metal. The group rumbled through a short set of their classics and some from their newest songs from their Century Media release entitled The War Within. They seemed to have played a little more than 30 minutes. Lead singer Brian Fair did not stop spinning his head once as we
watched. His dreads looked like deadly whips as they thrashed around.
Lamb Of God came on next and the audience was showing that a good majority
of them were in attendance for this band. We also saw lots of LOG shirts as
we walked about the venue during down time. It's obvious that their major label debut on Epic Records Ashes of the Wake has helped cement this band quite a following. I last heard this band was on Ozzfest recently but I did not see them. More good stuff from these guys but while it was a nice set, I felt the vocal mix sucked as I could hardly hear their singer.
After a decent stage shift time it was Slipknot's turn to hit the stage. You could feel the energy building in the air as their lead in stuff was going on. A curtain was drawn in front until all members were onstage and ready. Now I am hard pressed to describe what actually went on, because for those who have never seen a Slipknot show, what goes on at a performance is absolute mayhem. The lead singer Corey Taylor is certainly able to rile people up when they play. That's important in a front man, but I had several problems with the audience. They were a lot tamer than I expected for this band. I have to say that each member of the band runs about like they are insane and if you cannot get to a show, pick up the DVD for "Disasterpieces" since it shows in full-fledged glory the craziness that ensues. I found it amusing to see the DJ character run down to hit the giant conga type drums and then hang from them when they rose into the air. He would jump off and run back to his DJ section. Wild to say the least. Perhaps my favorite part of the whole night was Joey Jordisons drum solo. He is just a killer drummer and he employs some of the rising and spinning drum kit stuff that was done by Tommy Lee years ago, and it was all the more impressive to see him playing at Death Metal speed while spinning around.
Towards the end, Corey Taylor came front stage and showed off the bands platinum
and gold awards for their releases. The audience seemed to enjoy that, but
they still were not as lively as they should have been.
Set List
15 MINUTE HOME MOVIE
PRELUDE 3.0 INTRO
BLISTER EXISTS
DISASTERPIECE
BEFORE I FORGET
LEFT BEHIND
LIBERATE
VERMILION
PULSE OF THE MAGGOTS
JOEY SOLO
VERMILION PT. 2 VIDEO
THE NAMELESS
IOWA
HERETIC ANTHEM
EVERYTHING ENDS
DUALITY
SPIT IT OUT
PEOPLE = SHIT
GET THIS
WAIT AND BLEED
SURFACING
DANGER KEEP AWAY
Commentary by Ken Pierce, with additional text from Pete Pardo
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