Thursday 4 December 2008

Born Slippy


Apologies for the lengthy absence, I've been swanning around (sort of) sunny Italy on a cruise ship for a week. I'm still trawling through my million photos of that, so expect to be bored with holiday snaps shortly.

Meanwhile, I have my friend Leah - a roomie from our student days - staying with me and much Christmas shopping and giggling has been going on. Tomorrow we're off to see Edward Scissorhands, the stage version (had no idea there even was one until half an hour ago), after a bit of lazing about.

I was forced to leave her napping on the sofa this evening though, because I had tickets to see Slipknot and she summed up her opinion of said experience as coming runner up to the prospect of chewing off her own foot.

Now the best thing about this evening was that I got to take Scott, who is excitable about absolutely everything, to his first ever metal concert. In fact, so clueless was he that, while we were in Camden the other week, he repeatedly asked me whether various songs we heard were anything like Slipknot were going to be. Including, at one point, Girls Aloud.

Understandably, I was somewhat nervous about his reaction - growling men in masks aren't everyone's cup of tea. Being an incredible sweetheart, he volunteered to accompany me just because he knew how much I wanted to go, so I was dreading the look of horror I was sure would spread slowly over his face.

Fortunately, Scott is one of the world's limited stock of truly open-minded people and was bright eyed and headbanging just one song into MachineHead, the support band (we managed to miss Children of Bodom thanks to my tortoise bus), and declaring himself a convert. He loved the atmosphere, had a whale of a time people-watching, seemed to appreciate being cussed at between songs and perfected his metal hands after only one or two false starts. His huge grin made a fantastic gig even more fun.

The highlight for both of us, I think, was when the drummer was raised, drum kit and all, and flipped sideways and upside down in the air, drumming away as he went. Genius. You can sort of see it in the photo, but everything was a bit flashy and flamey and most of my pictures are pretty balls of light.

I can't hear a thing and my feet are killing me, but man was it worth it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish I could have gone...I've never seen them live. I think like most metal bands they must hate Vegas for gigs. Glad you enjoyed it!

Anonymous said...

Weird! I was in a cab yesterday driving past the venue and saw Slipknot was on the bill and nearly texted you. I didnt because I somehow knew you were going - maybe cos you told me and not all of my brain was made at a crochet class for the simple. I hope. Glad you had good time!