When beloved Slipknot/Stone Sour front man Corey Taylor announced he would be appearing at this weekends For The Love of Horror convention in Manchester, my friend and I immediately started hatching a plan. And just as quickly we abandoned said plan after seeing the price of the guest tickets for the con. We’re single mums, it’s nearly Christmas.

So when he then announced he’d be playing a warm up show the night before for a far more affordable ticket price, we were there with bells on. 

Slipknot were one of the first bands I had a big thing for, at the age of 13 it was genuinely the heaviest music I’d ever heard at that point in my life. Years later, I discovered that Stone Sour would allow Corey to showcase his incredible vocal ability in a far more melodic way. At 15 I was gripped by Taylor singing ‘Bother’ with his acoustic, and it remains one of my favourite live performances ever. 

Life moves you on though, and I found myself cold, wet and irritated in 2019 and walking away from a Slipknot set at Download. I walked away bored from a Slipknot set, their frantic energy just didn’t resonate with me at that moment. I’ve yearned to fall back in love with Slipknot for ages now.

The BEC (new home to this years Damnation Festival as well) is laid out ready for tomorrow’s convention, and amusingly there are horror cosplayers here in the audience tonight. I spot a werewolf, a ghostface, and a few demon type costumes. Pints are a fiver. I bring you only the important information. 

Opening tonight with their Macabaret, its alternative dance troupe the Cherry Bombs. This weird and wonderful array of misfits are swinging fire, spinning poi and climbing ropes above the audience to a soundtrack of Rob Zombie, Rage Against the Machine, Prodigy and Rammstein. It’s full on for an hour and received well by the audience.  I think I am a little jealous because if I tried to dance like that I would a) knock myself out, b) knock out the person next to me and c) look about as sexy as an epileptic elephant. 

There is a tangible excitement in the air by the time Corey Taylor reaches the stage, and the set starts big with a cover of ‘Love Song’ by the Damned. I’m thrilled to hear his voice is on excellent form, and he’s every bit the showman people know and love. Taylor’s personality and charisma are sometimes lost for me behind the mask when fronting Slipknot; tonight it radiates right across the roomy BEC venue and fills every corner.

After the opening number the set list twists and turns throughout the different eras of Taylor’s career, firstly with tracks from “CMFT” (his debut solo album), then onto Stone Sour and Slipknot. I wasn’t expecting there to be the likes of ‘Wait’ and ‘Bleed’ and ‘Absolute Zero’ in the set list, so it was a welcome mosh pit inducing addition the audience adored. 

The stand out moments of the set come in the form of the highly emotive tracks. Corey is so talented at delivering the kind of performance that makes you believe he’s singing to nobody but you, and every painful lyric is sang with such a genuine tenderness. I’m a person who is openly affected by music, I will stand and sob through songs (much to the amusement/bewilderment of my friends at times) and tonight I felt my heart shatter a little during ‘Snuff’ (started acoustically, but with the full band joining in at the first chorus) and  a few tears roll down my cheek. An incredible performance.

The thing that really struck me tonight was how much fun Corey seemed to be having. He bounced well off the audience, giggled endlessly with his band, slipped in a few dad jokes, slagged off Kerrang magazine and even did the Spongebob theme song. It was a brilliant performance tonight, Taylor came across as so genuine and warm and I sincerely hope he can find time between Slipknot and Stone Sour to come over to UK with his solo show again. Me and all my feels will definitely be back to watch him again.