Slipknot: Live in Burgettstown
“None of Us Spoke on the Ride Home.”
Written by Big Bear Buchko

I sit down at my desk for the pre-dawn rush of the day. I check emails, text messages and the like; which, amazingly, I’m not that far behind on, given as my night had actually just ended a few hours earlier. I light a cigar as memories from the evening previous start flooding their way in through the haze, and the sun has only begun to crest when I receive a text from Andy, another late-night friend of mine who’d also been at last night’s performance. “Tons of people bitching about the show.” I’m not surprised. If there’s one thing I can definitively say about Slipknot from their 25^th Anniversary Bring the Pain tour, is that they certainly reminded me precisely why I used to hate Slipknot 25 years ago.

Slipknot coming to town now is almost as clockwork as Santa Claus. We get the kids all dressed up, we tailgate with sweets and sugarplums, and then we all gather round in the lawn section of Star Lake Pavilion and sing Slipsmas carols, standing and swaying together, hand-in-hand, in the hopes that St. Taylor and his 8 mighty reindeer soon will be there. (Christ, this analogy works like gangbusters…) It’s a joyous occasion for one and all, and you look forward to it when it happens.

There was a spread of us in the Bear Pack last night; my wife, (Jb); the girl we’ve been dating for the last six months (A); and the girl that I’ve been dating for the last few months myself (S). The star of the show for me, though, was the inclusion of my heavy-metal-loving, 6-days-from-his-2^nd-birthday, be-mohawked son, Figgy (nickname). Of the five of us, no one was a bigger Slipknot fan than Figgy; at 18-months, while he could only speak short words and phrases, he could already vocalize to “Unsainted” and part of the chorus to “Custer.” If you’ve never seen a pre-toddler full-body headbang to the breakdown in “Nero Forte,” you are missing out on something far crazier and cuter than Sesame Street could ever hope to produce in the modern world.

We rolled into Burgettstown from Pittsburgh as a caravan – with the four adults having enjoyed some strenuous pre-show activities before hitting the road, and as all of us (except the baby) were potheads, we were coming into this show ripped, well-fucked, and ready to rock. Spirits had been high as the date of the show neared, and it was only within the last 24 hours did a dark cloud emerge. As our show was the 2^nd stop of this aforementioned tour, I was able to jump on Setlist.fm to catch a glimpse of what kind of Slipknot glory had taken place at the Ruoff Music Center in Noblesville, IN – their 1^st stop. My eyes narrowed and my jaw tightened as I became quickly and increasingly confused as to what I was reading. “Oh no,” I thought, “This can’t be right. What the hell is this? There’s… nothing on here.” And with that, I jump to social media, and a quick search of the band name reveals the first batch of post-show arm-chair commentary flooding in, with “wow, what a disappointment,” “not worth it,” and other similarly negative statements, loud and prevalent, everywhere I looked. My heart sank, and all I could think of was my son – the biggest little Slipknot fan – finally getting to see the band he loves, and not getting to hear a single song he likes.

“This setlist sucks.” In a way, I know it’s important for him to learn the realities of an expectedly-long and prosperous concert-going future: sometimes the band you go to see won’t play the song(s) you want live. It’s an inevitability that we’ve all encountered probably more than a couple times; Oasis didn’t play “Champagne Supernova,” Marilyn Manson didn’t play “Lunchbox” for more than a decade, Cradle of Filth skipped “From the Cradle to Enslaved,” and while it’s still fully possible to have a great show, you still walk away with a tiny wound in your soul where that disappointment now lives. And while I know it’s important that he learns to live with that, why tonight.

We walk the 75 miles between the parking at The Pavilion and the actual Pavilion venue, and despite the threat of heat stroke, heart attack, and complete physical breakdown, we make it in. This was the baby’s 4^th concert, having seen Smashing Pumpkins at three months old, Hemlock, and the dual combo Sevendust/Static-X back in February, and he already knows the score; stay close, people watch, make friends. A metal show is populated by extended family - another fact of life I’m happy he’s learning early, and as he headbangs around in his own personal little battle jacket, the attention he receives from everyone and anyone in eyesight is immediate and strong, so much so that after the Static-X show earlier this year, we had stickers made for him to hand out. “I Met the Heavy Metal Baby!” It’s pure sap, and I love it, and he started handing them out to every “oh my god, he’s so cute!” that he encountered. (“You’re raising ‘em right!” is still one of my favorite personal compliments.) “Someday, people are going to stop taking pictures of you just for being adorable, you know,” I tell him. I think the baby thinks he’s famous. Dammit.

But we settle in on the lawn – close enough to have a great view of the stage, far enough back that we don’t really need to worry about headphones for the more sensitive ears. It’s a good blend, and shortly after 7:00pm (1900 hours, for our European friends), we are greeted by the opening bars of the death metal deluge that is Orbit Culture, one of two opening bands leading up to Slipknot. I could see their brand doing well in this current musical climate, as they very much invoke a sound similar to post-Paris-Olympics-era Gojira (what a fucking weird-ass line that is to write). There’s a lot of noise here, and one song is virtually indistinguishable from another. As my Gojira era ended a good few years ago, I check out and check out hard. “I’m going to wander. Let me know if they accidentally do something interesting.”

I leave the pack of girls to drown in their beverages as I stroll through the thickening crowd. It’s a unique experience - a heavy metal event of this size, and one of a considerably lower economic status than, say, your average Metallica concert, where a sizeable percentage of their audience could easily be lawyers, day traders, fancy German Motorwerks enthusiasts. No, you’re probably not going to run into a lot of that here. This is Middle-Aged Maggotland, one that looks considerably older every time we gather. And we are older. The fact that we’re at the 25^th Anniversary of anything from our adolescence only solidifies this, and the crow’s feet, gut paunch, and shuffling gate of us all is really only highlighting the word.

There is a wonderful mix of people that come to metal shows, and an event like Slipknot coming to town is a tremendous opportunity for us to unite and scream and prove we still exist in a Taylor Swift world. As I make a pass by the right field lawn, I run into Mike Palm from the Pittsburgh Tribune. He says he’s there to cover the show and asked if he could get a photograph of me and Figgy for the article. I agree to just a pic of Figgy, as there’s really no reason to dilute his charm with my fat hairy biker visage. We chat for a moment, and after I conveniently leave out that I’m also there to cover the show, we part ways and never see each other again.

Next on the show’s docket is Knocked Loose, and they were better known to the audience than I’d expected them to be; something I’d noticed from the small handful of their t-shirts dotting the waves as I walked around the gigantic outdoor venue. But I didn’t know them, not at all, and as I had been unmoved by Orbit Culture and dreading what I was with Slipknot, I needed something to really stand out and save the night for me. Unfortunately, the pre-pubescent caterwauling of a preppy Ezra Miller was not the way to do it, and I found myself unreasonably angry having to deal with them at all.

It’s not just that they were bad, but aggressively bad, and they attempt to supplement their suck with a pompous disposition they are greatly undeserving of having. I’m reminded of the analogy of the chessboard chicken: it knocks the pieces over, shits all over the board, and then struts around like it won. This is Knocked Loose, and I’d rather not speak of them again, lest I afford them more publicity. But the sun is down now, the stage is put together with all the drums and logos and banners and bullshit, and a crowd of 20,000 or so eagerly await the reality of what myself and a few others might know.

The lights go out, the effects and fog come flowing in, and the look on my son’s face when he realizes who we’re there to see is priceless in its own right. He immediately starts singing “cut cut cut fuc fuc fuc,” which is how he translates the cut cut cut me up, fuck fuck fuck me up chorus from “Custer.” I loved seeing his excitement, but I also knew it was about to be entirely in vain. We start with the repetitive nonsense that is “742617000027” which jumps right into “(sic),” “Eyeless” and “Wait and Bleed.” We’re ten minutes into the show, and following the previous setlist, they’re pretty much out of worthwhile songs for the evening. Goddammit, this sucks. Is this really how this show is going to go? And then, he says it; addressing the crowd, lead singer Corey Taylor says they won’t play a single song tonight that was written after 1999. And with that, you can see the happiness and expectations of 90% of the crowd deflate in an instant. This sucks.

I have three issues with what’s going on here – two minor, one pretty major. #1. I’ve seen plenty of bands play “anniversary” shows. They play a selection of hits, then their ‘classic’ album or whatever they’re celebrating, back to the hits and end hard. There’s no reason to do it the way they’re doing it. #2. This gives them barely an hour’s worth of material, and sure enough, thirty minutes in, per the setlist, the show is already halfway done. It took us longer to get to the fucking venue. But #3. And here’s the major one. A few weeks ago, those of us ticketholders on the list all received an email from “Slipknot,” asking us all to vote on what songs we’d want played at our shows in each city. They provided a comprehensive list of every song from every album, with interactive boxes to click and everything. It was cool because it made us feel like we were a part of the planning, and maybe insinuated that each show could be slightly different. Why. Why do this if you’re going to play a bullshit setlist of 13 crap tracks from when you guys were a part of Ozzfest? This is worthless at best, and bait-and-switch at worst.  

I feel like “the pain” in the Bring the Pain Tour title was the pain they were planning to inflict on the people that dared to like their better, more-mature sound of later material. I avoided the first few Slipknot albums like the plague; their sound was choppy, their schtick was hacky, and their fans at the time were the absolute worst. It took me 15 years to find a version of Slipknot I enjoyed, and this was – in fact – a perfect nostalgic reminder of why I used to hate Slipknot in the first place. And I can see why they kept the revelation of their setlist a secret; because there’s no way this tour would have sold so many tickets if the people knew they weren’t getting a proper Slipknot show, but instead a disappointing stroll down nu-metal lane. There’s no way in hell Madison Square Garden would have sold out if these people knew they were getting an hour of 1^st album b-side filler.

The show was halfway done, and none of us had enjoyed ourselves. I’d spent triple digits to hear one decent song, and as the rest of the setlist was going to be a Tabasco-lubed proctologist visit, we decided to beat the traffic and bounce out. Except, we didn’t beat the traffic. The moment Corey Taylor made the announcement of their plans for the night, the exodus started. Dozens, hundreds heading for their cars; the mummering of sadness and anger from all of them. They’d taken our money, sold us over-priced shit ($55 for a tiny tour poster, really?), and given us nothing in return. This feels personal. This feels like punishment for a crime I don’t think we committed. Is this because we hated their last album? Is that why they’re doing this to us? We were punished for being fans. That’s what this feels like, and I don’t think we’ll forget this feeling anytime soon.

None of us spoke on the ride home. We grabbed some food from the gas station, ate in bed and parted ways soon after. No one talked about the show. It had been a waste of everything; time, money, and excitement. Slipknot’s laughing all the way to the bank, and all but the most die-hard JNCO Maggots from Junior High are feeling like the biggest suckers in the world this morning. Seriously. Don’t bother with this. Sell your tickets. Go see a band that actually likes you and gives more than a paycheck’s shit about their audience.  

I sit down at my desk for the pre-dawn rush of the day. I check emails, text messages and the like, and a short while later, I get a message telling me to check the morning Trib. Sure enough, there’s an article about the show that not only has Figgy’s picture and references to him as The Heavy Metal Baby, but they even linked to our FigLuvsMetal Instagram for him in the description. It was the first time I’d smiled since the show had started some ten hours earlier. Leave it to Mike Palm to save the day.

I don’t feel good about last night, and I don’t like it. I’d even made plans to cover tonight’s Primus show at Stage AE and I’m not 100% certain I’m up to it anymore. Slipknot really kicked us while we were down, and I’m not fully convinced I’d be willing to see them again. We were invited to come celebrate Slipknot, yet most of us left feeling like we’re owed either an apology or a refund. I’m starting to wonder if Jay Weinberg was the only decent person in the band…