Knotfest made its triumphant Australian debut over the weekend, holding sold-out festivals in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
Attendees and critics alike have been showering the events with praise, with the organisation, format and quality of the Slipknot-curated festival proving a big hit with Aussie metalheads.
Featuring brilliant sets from a stacked lineup including Slipknot, Parkway Drive, Megadeth, Trivium, Northlane, Amon Amarth, In Flames, Knocked Loose, Spiritbox, Story Of The Year, Alpha Wolf, Void Of Vision, Bad Omens and Malevolence, Knotfest Australia reportedly made good on its promise of a clash-free nirvana for metal festival starved Aussies.
Encouragingly for Knotfest's chances of returning down under, the three Knotfest Australia shows also seem to have been relatively incident-free, save for the event day withdrawal of Bad Omens from the Melbourne event and an incident involving a fan breaking their femur during Bad Omens set in Sydney.
One Slipknot fan did get a little too excited during Slipknot's first Aussie set in seven years though, infamously bringing an iconic set to a temporary halt, when they scaled a speaker tower, forcing organisers to stop the set until they agreed to climb back down, which they did readily and were immediately surrounded by security guards.
The incident prompted Slipknot frontman to pronounce "I can't take you crazy motherfuckers anywhere man, Jesus Christ! Got you climbing on shit, jumping off shit, rolling on shit — what the fuck?! That's fine, I can't stay mad at you. This is by far one of my favourite fucking countries in the entire fucking world. I mean that. You guys helped put us where we are and we have never forgotten that, god damn it, so thank you so fucking much."
You can watch the whole sequence go down in the YouTube footage below.
The same stunt was repeated in Brisbane by another excited maggot, and they were met with the same fate. As far as Slipknot fan incidents go, it was all very low-key, with the swift and non-confrontational action taken by organisers and security, preventing these antics from getting out of hand, ensuring the sets celebratory vibes continued. As per the video, the incident took place before The Heretic Anthem in Slipknot's career-spanning, 15-track set. You can see the full setlist and an official recap video from their performance of Spit It Out below.
Slipknot Knotfest Melbourne Set List
Disasterpiece
Wait and Bleed
All Out Life
Sulfur
Before I Forget
The Dying Song (Time to Sing)
Dead Memories
Unsainted
The Heretic Anthem
Psychosocial
Duality
Custer
Spit It Out
People = Shit
Surfacing
The three-date run of Knotfest Australia was Australian maggot's first opportunity to hear tracks from Slipknot's seventh full-length album The End, So Far and their 2019 record We Are Not Your Kind, with The Dying Song (Time To Sing) from the former and All Out Life and Unsainted from the latter making their live debuts down under at Knotfest Melbourne.
Produced collaboratively by Joe Baressi (Queens Of The Stone Age, Soundgarden, Avenged Sevenfold, Parkway Drive) and Slipknot, The End, So Far is the follow-up to Slipknot’s 2019 We Are Not Your Kind which marked the band’s third consecutive #1 on the ARIA album chart.
To celebrate the widely anticipated release we caught up with Slipknot bass player, Alessandro 'V-Man' Venturella for a discussion about all things The End, So Far, if you haven't already, head on over and give it a read.
Buy The End, So Far
Shop for Slipknot Merch
Listen To The End, So Far
