Slipknot & Behemoth, Motorpoint Arena Cardiff
Unfortunately I have start this review by having a(nother) very well-deserved moan about the venue. If you’ve ever been to Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena for a metal show you probably already know that the venue hasn’t exactly got a reputation for having great sound. On the other hand, the electronic based bands I’ve seen there (such as The Prodigy, Enter Shikari and Nine Inch Nails) have all sounded great, but that’s likely because of the venues propensity for seemingly only amplifying the low frequencies and a touch of the mid-range, discarding any and all semblance of detail along the way. So, the elephant in the room on this occasion is less an elephant and more the room itself - both figuratively and literally.
So, when I got in to see that Behemoth (5) were already part way through their set the piss poor sound didn’t raise my eyebrows too much as support bands often get short shrift in the audio department. The fact that they were permitted to have what looked to me to be a full stage show, replete with fire and everything, but still sounded bloody awful should have been a warning of what was sonically to come but I didn’t give it much thought, more fool me. Admittedly black/death metal isn’t really my thing, but the band were still a good watch, aided by that rather impressive stage show and an alert lighting op which is something else that not every support band gets the luxury of having. I very much doubt that I would go to see the band as a headliner but in this setting, they were perfectly enjoyable to watch, albeit somewhat of a chore to listen to – but that wasn’t necessarily their fault.
A bigger chore on the night was attempting to figure out what exactly the headliner’s front Corey Taylor was singing and saying between songs during Slipknot’s (6) set. Honestly it sounded like he had a mouth full of cotton wool such was the absolutely dire sound quality. His vocals during songs were frequently lost in the mix, being drowned out by all the bottom end the evening’s sound engineer was pushing on us. Oddly the mix slightly improved during the latter part of the bands’ performance but by then the damage had already been done: I heard numerous people around me complaining about the sound, which would have had to improve by leaps and bounds to even reach the sub-par level.
The fact that the sound quality improved a little during the bands set (only around ten(!) songs in mind!) somewhat proved that it wasn’t solely the venues PA or acoustics that were to blame for the muddier-than-a-swamp sound mix; they certainly didn’t help but whoever was in charge of sound engineering on this night needs a lesson or two too. The additional fact that the approximately 7,500 in the totally sold out crowd had paid north of fifty quid each for their tickets felt like another insult after hearing the aural abomination that was the sound mix for the show. The further fact that the bands would have performed sound checks and therefore someone must have signed off the nights’ sound board configurations is just baffling to me. Maybe it actually sounded amazing when the room was empty? Who knows.
All of which was a bloody shame as Slipknot’s actual performance was excellent. The band certainly do know how to put on a memorable show and this night’s was another example of just how entertaining they are when they hit the stage. I personally enjoyed the set list that was chosen which featured a good smattering of classic ‘Knot tunes (such as Disasterpiece, Eeyore, Before I Forget, Psychosocial and Eyeless - during which the crowd went certifiably crazy) nestling alongside future classics taken from my own favourite album of 2019 We Are Not Your Kind (Nero Forte, All Out Life and show opener – and in this writers’ opinion the bands current best song – Unsainted). The familiar encore trio of (sic), People = Shit and Surfacing closed out the show.
It was a hell of a show too with plenty of explosions and pyro to catch the eye along with very impressive LED screens behind and above the band plus the same LED tech wrapped around the two elevated platforms that the band’s percussionists were perched on. If I could score the stage show separately from the sound (horror) show, the scores would definitely be at completely opposite ends of the scale. Unfortunately, and to put it mildly, the sound is kind of an unavoidably integral part of a gig and thus I can’t really do that. This is a shame as being essentially forced into giving this show such a low score somehow doesn’t seem fair, but that utterly abysmal sound mix really detracted from the excellent stage performances. Hopefully the proposed new Cardiff Arena in the city’s Bay area will get things right, but we’ll have to wait and bleed on that one until the place is actually built. Overall this was a memorable gig in the Welsh capital for sure, unfortunately it was mostly for the wrong reasons.
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