For what seemed to be a long awaited appearance fans were eager to see the return of Knotfest in Manchester NH. Fans were gathered around the SNHU arena for what appeared to be a sold out crowd.
The first band of the evening was HO9909. They are considered an American Hip Hop/Punk Rock group originally from New Jersey. They moved to Los Angeles in 2014. Throughout their career they have performed at Rock Festivals and have released mulitple EP’s.
They were even named Rolling Stone Magazine’s “10 new Artists you need to know.” As soon as the lights were on and you could see their set it featured skulls and two Gargoyle Dogs. During their set the lead vocalist OGM came to the stage and pretended he got a phone call. He said Hello NH is that you. This got the crowd roudy. The crowd was ready for the rest of the evening.
The Next band of the evening was Cypress Hill. They are an American Hip Hop Group from South Gate, California. They have sold multi platinum and platinum albums, and have sold 20 million albums worldwide. If you were born in the 90’s you would know they are considered to be one of the prime Hip Hop groups of that ERA.
When it was time for them to come on stage their intro was long and consisted a DJ mix of Tracks. The first thing the fans noticed was Marijuana leaves draped over the drum set. The band are big advocates for medical Cannabis and that can be seen throughout their performance. This was shown during their song “Dr. Green Thumb” when the lead vocalist B Real lights up a blunt and smokes it during the song.
The drummer Eric Bobo, at one point had light up drum sticks when the house lights were out. The fans were already on their feet cheering loudly. They continued to play some of their hits songs throughout the night some of which included. “I Ain’t Going Out Like That,” “How I Could Just Kill A Man,” and “Hits From The Bong.” They ended their set with their biggest song “Jump Around,” which is a House of Pain cover song. The crowd went crazy! Go check them out if you haven’t done so already if you are a 90’s buff. They will not disappoint.
Finally the band that everyone had waited to see Slipknot was ready to hit the stage. They are an American Heavy Metal band from Des Moines, IA. They are known for their aggressive style of music and their outrageous stage shows. The fans were ready to see what they had in store. While the fans were waiting for them to arrive on stage an AC/DC song “We Salute You” was playing through the arena with the black Slipknot curtain hanging over the stage.
As soon as the first beat of “Disasterpiece” started the crowd went completely insane. The fans were amazed at how big a stage setup their was. They had a 2 story stage that featured three sets of drums (2 of which featured keg drums.) The stage left top level was “Tortilla Man” and stage right was Shawn Crahan (a.k.a Clown) Jay Weinberg’s drum set was set in the back between the two levels.
Before the song “Sulfur,” lead vocalist Corey Taylor came to the stage to address the crowd. Fire balls were seen in the background of the song. During the song “Dead Memories,” “Tortilla Man” was seen running around the stage with a Go Pro and at one point he fell over a set of speakers. It was like watching a circus show. Corey comes to the mic and says to the crowd “If your 555 and the crowd would respond back with 666 this went on a few times before they went into their song “The Heretic Anthem.” Tortilla Man is a true showman.
Throughout the night he runs all over the stage sliding around and hanging off a barrel just trying to get the crowd pumped up. The pit begins to open up. For “Devil And I,” there was once again flames in the background guitarist Alessandro Venturella (a.k.a. V Man) could be seen with a flamethrower attached to his guitar, towards the back of the stage. Corey comes back to the Mic and says “my throat is a little fuc*ed up for the past few days but does it sound ok?” The guys have been waiting 13 years to play the next song which would end up being “Snuff.”
During the final four songs Corey asked the crowd in between each song if they wanted one more song. These songs included “Vermilion,” “Duality,” “Custer,” and “Spit It Out.” Before the Encore Corey asks for the lights to come on and takes a video camera and shows the crowd. He asks the crowd to get down on the ground and jump when I say jump. The crowd got on their knees and when he says Jump the entire arena jumps up and goes crazy. This is a sight to see! The floor of the arena was shaking it got so loud. They went out for a short Encore and came back to play their hit songs, “People =Sh*t,” “Sic,” and “Surfacing.” They put on an amazing show filled with fire, tons of energy and true showman ship from the entire band. They are all extremely talented musicians and it shows every time they are on stage.
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