Slipknot brings Midwest madness to Pinnacle Bank Arena

Slipknot's nine masked men in white jumpsuits took the stage at Pinnacle Bank Arena with a roar Thursday, excited to be — in a way — home.

“It's so good to be back in the Midwest,” singer Corey Taylor said, later adding, “Slipknot is 2½ hours from here (in Iowa). That's why Slipknot is what it is, because we were born and raised in the Midwest.”

What Slipknot is musically is an aggressive heavy metal band that has evolved beyond its nu metal roots and become one of the genre's most inventive groups — slipping in anthemic, melodic passages here and touching electronic sounds there.

The latter could be most easily heard on “Unsainted,” a song from “We Are Not Your Kind,” the Slipknot album out Friday.

Thursday's show wasn't a play-the-new-record affair, however, as the set list spanned the band's career, heavy on their original material.

Whatever they were playing would whip the crowd into a head and fist frenzy with a mosh pit spinning in the center of the arena floor.

Slipknot is as impressive as it is intense — great players creating a tightly fused ball of sound for the vocals of Taylor, who can effectively rap, sing, growl and scream.

And, most importantly, Slipknot put on a great show – the nine guys swarming around the three-tiered stage, an impressive mix of lights and video and sheer massive sound.

As for the rest of the four-band Knotfest Roadshow:

I never imagined I would hear a Dusty Springfield song at a heavy metal concert. But Volbeat brought a very cool, respectfully heavy version of “I Only Want to Be With You” midway through his hour-long set.

The cover perfectly matched the Danish quartet's captivating musical mix.

Frontman Michael Paulson is a fan of 50s/60s music. He puts that sound into the hard rock of Volbeat – sometimes overtly as in Johnny Cash's “Ring of Fire” that fell into the Cash swagger “Sad Man's Tongue” and the 50s-rooted Elvis tribute “Pelvis on Fire” .

But Volbeat can scream and thump with the best – only with melodies, hooks and the roll that most metal apart from Motörhead lacks. This entails killer songs like “Seal The Deal” released as Volbeat's great set comes to a close.

Gojira and Behemoth opened the roadshow, creating a total of more than four hours of music that satisfied – and exhausted – the 6,000 metal fans who arrived at the arena on Thursday.