Joey Jordison

Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison, doing his best to make dressing like a sapling seem scary. Photograph by: THE GAZETTE/Phil Carpenter. The Montreal stop on Britney Spears’ The Circus tour is still a few days away. But when Slipknot took the stage last night at the Bell Centre, Montrealers got a taste of an entirely different type of circus, where the animals are all rabid and the clowns wear make-up made from crushed bone dust and human blood.

With their 1999 self-titled debut, the nine Halloween-masked members of Slipknot enjoyed almost immediate success, riding the cresting popularity of the freshly minted genre of ‘nu-metal’. Of course, this brought along an inevitable backlash from some metalheads, who viewed nu-metal’s mix of alternative music with funk basslines, hip hop elements, and the canned aggression of X-Games ad campaigns as overly commercial. Add the fact that Slipknot’s popularity appeared nearly instantaneous, seemingly arriving without being earned through years of releasing forgotten split 7-inch records with bands like Mgla, and you have a tough sell to some purists.

But truth be told, the Iowa-based band owes less to hip-hop than they do to alternative metal. Essentially, they’re a very angry Tool without the math, or a less lethargic Acid Bath. Creating what could be described as high-octane grunge for kids with behavioural problems, their angst-ridden lyrics continue to strike a chord with disillusioned teens, who feed off the band’s nihilism and near boundless aggression.

That aggression was out in full force last night, as the band took the stage to a nearly packed house, taking a moment to bask in the crowd's adulation. And then they launched into the blistering (sic), from their debut album, and the carnage began.

Though the band can sound generic on recordings, their stage show is something to behold. Not only are songs like Eyeless and the profanity-laced Get This absolutely crushing in a live setting, but the band is a fountain of chaotic energy. With nine members, including a DJ, sampler, and two custom percussionists on top of super-drummer Joey Jordison, not everyone is constantly occupied with their instrument. Yet there were no idle moments, with members constantly roaming the stage, thrashing wildly or engaging in elaborate Punch and Judy style pantomime.

Between songs, singer Corey Taylor worked the crowd into a frenzy that matched his own spastic convulsions. But despite his manic energy, Taylor managed to keep his vocals tightly controlled, alternating between furious screaming and melodic passages in tracks like Wait and Bleed, Duality, or Before I Forget.

Equally ferocious were guitarists Jim Root and Mick Thomson, who thrashed their way through a down-tuned crunch of sound, though some of the solos drifted away from Root towards the end of the band’s nearly 2-hour set.

Surprisingly, Slipknot didn’t seem particularly interested in playing tracks off their new record, though they did make a token effort to play singles Sulfer, Psychosocial and the morose Dead Memories. The focus, instead, was on their earlier, heavier work, and some of the more experimental tracks from 2004's Vol 3 (The Subliminal Verses) and 2001’s Iowa. The chiming guitar intro of Vermillion, for example, brought to mind Twilight Zone music cues. And the marching band rhythms of The Blister Exists were aggressively martial, particularly in light of the group’s current uniform of tight jeans, tattered army jackets, and Converse sneakers, which gave them the appearance of a homeless hipster army.

Exhaustingly intense, all the sound and fury finally built to a grand crescendo of chaos. By the time final song Spit it Out was played, Jordison was drumming at a 90 degree angle on his moveable drum riser. The percussionists were throwing beer kegs at the sampler, and DJ Sid Wilson was essentially swinging from the rafters. Not quite Spears' circus, but certainly well worth the price of admission. And the rabies shot.

The concert was opened by Vancouver’s 3 Inches of Blood, a fantasy-based band who sound like I imagine Iron Maiden would were they composed of medieval bikers instead of millionaires. Direct support was provided by Florida thrashers Trivium.