Slipknot Concert Review (From Aliens View) Essay, Research Paper

Stephen Isaac

Professor Wlodarski

Music 100: Music Appreciation

23 October, 2001

We arrived at the concert around sun set. As we pulled up to the entrance, all I could see was a mass of humans. They scattered around the front of the building, some going in and coming out. In the middle of all the transportation devices there were a few men, in black suits, who pointed in different directions. They stopped groups of humans to allow the transportation devices by and vice versa. We now left our “car” with a group of other “cars” and made our way to the building. As we entered, we were told to form lines. At the end of these lines, we were greeted by a male human who patted each person, head to toe. He took a rectangle piece of material from our hands, and put a different piece of material around my wrist. After this we were ready to enter.

Once inside, I started to began feeling weird and a little uncomfortable. I was surrounded by young, scary humans, with sharp, hard, shinny objects, in their faces and pieces of art on their arms or backs. I could now hear the music coming from inside the main room of the building. The room was every large with different sections that held a countless amount of people. We went to the lowest section of the main room and stayed near the back, where fewer people were. My feelings soon changed from weird and uncomfortable, to slightly scared and fearful for me life, as I began to view the first group perform.

The music was loud, very loud. There were periods of lite/soft music followed by sudden and abrupt, crashes and bangs. The first group was a bit frightening. There was six of them in the group. Three of them played objects that had long skinny threads that were plucked to make a noise. One sat behind a group of multi-sized objects and hit them with two separate objects to create a noise. One stood over a rectangle box and pushed different sections of it. The last man, the leader, ran around yelling with a object in his hand that was up to his mouth. The people that watched were acting as if they were going to kill each other. They slammed themselves into each other and throw others in the air, then passed them around over there heads. In which most cases they would fall out of site. I felt bad for those people, I didn’t know if they were hurt or not.

The “music” had a certain connections with large balls of flames and streams of fire. When the humans banged on their objects bluntly, a stream of fire would immediately follow. It came from each side of the human, that sat behind his set of multi-sized objects. In most cases it occurred at the exact same time the music made a loud, abrupt noise. I could feel the heat from the explosion, and I wondered, “Am I in harms way” and “How could I just walked right into certain death like this”. I feared for my life. I thought they were going to kill me. The mass of human, that were fixated on the group, seem to enjoy the flames and the harsh acts of one another. So I figured I had to be OK. In between two long periods of “music”, the leader and the man with the rectangle box, left the stage. The music continued and soon after both man returned. Each had some type of device strapped around their heads. During the “music” that followed there return, the leader, looked at the man with the box and shot a stream of fire in his direction. The man with the box shot a stream of some kind of liquid back at him. No one got hurt or killed, luckily. They finished the section of music and walked off the stage. As that happened, an uproar of noise came from the mass of humans. Then the lights came on. I was so relieved, and thankful for its ending.

A curtain was raised in front of the stage, after the pervious group finished. There was once again another break, this one was longer. Finally the lights went out and a strange noise roared though the room. It was very chaotic, loud and scary. After a few seconds there was a loud bang and the curtain fell down. This exposed a hellish sight of smoke and fire. On the stage stood nine man, or should I say beasts. Their faces were deformed, a couple of them looked like their faces were melted. Their were once again many explosions occurring and there was two signs that light up and shot fire out of them. The audience was now crazier then ever. People were getting pushed, kicked and thrown around the whole lower level.

During the middle of a section of music, the leader stopped the music and demanded everyone to knell down. So everyone knelt down for a few seconds. He told us “when I say jump, you better F*#&ing jump”. They started playing again, slow at first then speeding up to a climax as the leader said “jump” and everyone jumped up and went crazier. The nine man ran around jumping off things, banging their heads back and forth and climbing up the set of multi-sized object that raised off ground level to about 10 feet in the air.

In the middle of the stage, one of the nine name played his set of multi-sized objects, which were circular objects that looked like containers. The objects were set up on a circle platform. He played the set with long skinny objects to make a noise by hitting the pieces of the set. As he played by himself, the rest of the man walked off stage. He then started playing fast and heavier. The platform that the set was on then began to raise. It tipped forward so the crowd could have a over head view. Then in the same position, the platform turned 360 degrees. After a minute or so the platform returned to its normal position.

Like the group before they finished there music and got off stage, but the lights didn’t turn on, instead the group came out and started playing again. Finally they finished up and existed the stage. The crowd screamed for a minute or so, then the lights came on and everyone walked towards the doors. Everyone looked very tired and worn out. Some people had cuts or bumps on the heads, others were all sweaty with ripped cloths. We then followed everyone else out the building and got in our “car” and went home.

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In my opinion my aliens description of the concert, seems realistic, because of the fact that he has no idea what an Earth heavy metal concert is like. The pyro-techniques, or balls of flames, are standard at most rock shows. It shows they have the money to put on a good show. It also adds an effect to the music, sort of like how chant enhances church. The description of the kids at the concert, is correct, just worded differently. Many teens attending heavy metal concerts have tattoos and piercing. The people in the crowd that were slamming themselves into each other are the moshers. Its a form of dancing, if you want to call it that.. The instruments being played weren’t given proper names because my alien didn’t know what they were. The description my alien gives, seems vivid enough that someone could understand which instrument he is talking about. The deformed faces of the members of the main band, were masks, but my alien doesn’t know this because he’s not familiar with human life or life on Earth.

I saw pretty much everything I expected to see. The first band, Rammstein, was better than I expected, they had a good stage show. They had good pyro-techniques

which I expected but it was so much better in really life. The guitar player played a solo with his guitar on fire, which was really amazing. The last band was Slipknot, was everything I expected and more. I didn’t expect the drummer to do the drum solo he did. They flipped him on his side and turned him around and he still played a really talented solo, it was a remarkable site.

Being at the show definitely didn’t make me feel like an outsider. I’ve listen to heavy metal for a long time and have been to many concerts. Even knowing that some heavy metal music is not talented or insightful, this concert was very much both talented and insightful. In-between two songs the singer of Slipknot stopped to comment on hate crimes in American since September 11. He explained that we need to punish the ones who perform the acts of September 11 and not innocent Americans. That to me was very insightful, mostly because it was coming from someone hows music is as violent as Slipknot. It shows they still have a heart. By passing this message, he could possibly changes someone’s views and/or save someone’s life. The show was also musicial inspiring, and I found myself with goose bumps, numerious times thoughout the night.