La Vie Artistique Magazine: Slipknot Ignited Aaron's Amphitheatre at Lakewood on July 26

Corey Taylor

Slipknot hurls together death metal, grindcore, rap and industrial punk with an intricate musicianship you’d expect from an orchestra. The masked and costumed metal group’s Summer’s Last Stand tour was a highly-theatrical celebration that featured macabre figures striding, leaping and riding moving platform around a two-tiered stage, plenty of fire and lyrical brimstone. It was my first Slipknot concert and I had a blast!

Over their two decades together, singer Corey Taylor has become fond of referring to the band as his "crazy dream." But if Slipknot is what he sees when he turns in for the night, you wouldn't necessarily want to be sharing a room with him.

The group is made up of members who wear a series of masks – inspired by Taylor's love of horror films – which are said to reflect their various on-stage personas. In the early days, the masks also served to hide the band's identities, though this changed in 2010 when the group appeared unmasked at a press conference following the death of the group's original bassist, Paul Gray. Since then, the masks have been more about performance than protection.