Soundwave Festival is so far one of the biggest rock festivals in Australia, with massive venues around the country and amazing sidewaves from some of the hottest bands on the bill.

Last Monday February 27, we started our Sidewave rounds with one of the headliners of the festival: SLIPKNOT, in a venue full of amazing rock, sound and pyrotechnics!

Trivium opened the show with the best of their repertory, playing eleven songs in total for almost an hour, including hits Throes of Perdition, Black and In Waves leaving the crowd hyped up to see the masked guys from Slipknot.

Around 9 pm, lights went off and the sounds of Iowa and 742617000027 started, making the venue go wild, with tons of fans wearing masks running and jumping around trying to get close to the stage, who firstly received the entrance of Clown (Shawn Crahan) carrying the iconic drummer Joey Jordinson on his shoulders, followed by Numbers 0, 5, 3, 4 and 7…getting the crowd ready to receive number 8, Mr. Corey Taylor who as usual gave the finger to the crowd as a way to start the rock party with the song “(sic)”.

The energy of the band totally got to the public, with a very active Clown moving from one side to the other on the stage, climbing his massive custom percussion drums and jumping around joined by his percussion mate Number 3 (Chris Fehn). Number 4 (Jim Root) and Number 7 Mick Thomson put on a different show, with powerful and combined riffs that was truly appreciated by the fans. The enigmatic Craig “133″ Jones, better known as number 5, stayed at his corner as always, doing what he does best with his keyboard-sampling tools. Finally we have DJ ‘Sid’ Wilson (Number 0) on his turntable, moving back and forth on the stage, climbing Clown’s kit and interacting with the crowd and risking his life (as he did in Soundwave too) by climbing the balcony above the seats, and jumping a great distance to do crowd surfing in a very very dangerous stunt with a huge empty space in between (Due to the emergency exit regulations, people are not allowed to stand there)

Corey Taylor’s great voice is key to a great show, talking to the crowd as a true organizer of the event, playing songs that the band did not play at Soundwave to their loyal fans, such as Everything Ends, Vermilion, Sulfur, Dead Memories and dedicating the song Only One to the memory of Paul Gray, while the stage displayed a huge Number 2 flag at the background in a very emotional moment at the gig.

The sound effect at the venue was great, and Slipknot pulled out a flawless gig, playing 18 songs including classics like Wait and Bleed, People = Shit, Psychosocial, The Heretic Anthem, Duality and Spit It Out where once again, Taylor made the entire crowd sit down and jump up at once.

The show ended with the traditional solo by Joey Jordinson at his amazing 90/360 degrees drum kit, surrounded by fire and amazing pyrotechnics while the band played Surfacing followed by a bidding farewell to Sydney with Til We Die and promises to come back very soon for a full headline tour.

Here enjoy some postcards of one of the best rock venues ever made below:

SLIPKNOT ROCKS!

*Fan photos for display purpose only. No commercial gains.