Off the Dial

Written by: Chris Andrade
October 20th, 2009 ~ Stampede Corral, Calgary, AB

Click Here to check out the live photos from this show!

Tuesday night was a busy one at the Stampede grounds as the Calgary Flames hosted Columbus for NHL action but the streets weren’t only packed with hockey fans. Just a few hundred meters away from the Saddledome, mixed in with the red and white jerseys, were hoards of black clad, tattooed, Mohawk sporting and face painted heavy metal fans. One often wonders in a city like Calgary where these music fans come from but they were out in huge numbers to take in openers Deftones and headliners Slipknot at the Stampede Corral.

The Sacramento, CA alt. metal act hit the stage just before 8pm to a healthy crowd of fans on the floor and in the seats. Fronted by Chino Moreno, who like his band-mates were decked out in casual clothes, the Deftones started things off with a new track off their forth-coming album Eros.The rest of the set featured many fan favourites including “My Own Summer”, “Feiticiera”, “Knife Party”, “When Girls Telephone Boys”, “Passenger” and “Change (In the House of Flies)” before closing out with “Hexagram”.

Visually, simplicity was the order of the evening for the Deftones with a plain white backdrop that cast the stage lights nicely as Moreno bounced around. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter shred through his guitar licks, head banging his massive head of hair so that you rarely ever saw his face. Fill-in bassist Sergio Vega looked happy an comfortable on stage although there was oddly no mention of Chi Cheng, who suffered serious injuries in a car crash last year. Regardless, fans were ecstatic to see the group return to Calgary in fine form and formed a very large circle pit for most of the show.

Of course, the crowd surged as the time drew near for Slipknot to hit the stage. The set-up was quite intricate with an elevated drum platform, keyboard and turntables on either side, two industrial looking percussion sets on each side of the front-stage (including beer kegs as drums), LED lighting and decorations hanging from the ceiling in front of the band’s backdrop. When the house lights went out, the crowd erupted and drummer Joey Jordison appeared followed by the rest of his eight band members including, of course, singer Corey Taylor who wore gray ripped jeans, a jacket and a ghoulish mask over his head exposing only his painted eyes and mouth plus Mowhak shaved head.

All nine of them made use of not only the stage but the props (using a baseball bat to hammer the beer keg drums), the equipment (one of the percussion sets, featuring a flat-screen depicting images from the self-mounted camera, rotated 360° and lifted high off the ground on a scissor lift, which a few members saw fit to climb and hang from) and even the sound board (as a few members surreptitiously made their way onto the floor to perform on a small platform near the back).

Almost everyone was singing along to just about every song but naturally the crowd were especially enthralled when Slipknot played hits “Wait and Bleed” and “Before I Forget” (both of which appeared early in the set) as well as other fan favourites including “Sulfur”, “Dead Memories” (in which Taylor sang entirely from behind the sound board) and “Psychosocial”. They were on from beginning to end and Taylor was extremely appreciative of the loving fans.

One does not need to know beyond the big hits to enjoy a show like this. There was so much action, so much going on you were practically left spinning trying to catch a glimpse of all that was going on around you, on and off the stage. It’s that, in combination with great performances by both acts that made for an excellent show.

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