Well here I am again. Stood in front of a very large curtain, smoke seeping underneath, wondering what to expect. The trickles of Iowa descend from the speakers and the curtain rolls back to reveal Joey Jordison, three foot long finger nails illuminated by an eerie gold spotlight.

What in gods name comes after this???

Carnage.

Furious, lusting, carnage.

Slipknot charge the stage and tear the arse out of Surfacing. The crowd is going completely insane - I thought they were intense for Machine Head, but I’ve not seen anything like this before.

By the time Corey Taylor comes out to join the other 8 lunatics, I’m pretty sure the Arena crowd is going to riot - Taylor owns the crowd, but shows them an unprecedented level of respect. They are his maggots, and he loves to let them know about it.

Surfacing is swiftly followed up by The Blister Exists and Get This and in a flash, I’m out of there. I dont think I’ve had as much fun in three songs before, and I dont think I’ve ever had three songs go as quickly before.

This set was a pleasure to photograph - the monitors were pretty high at the front of the stage, and there was an immense amount of security guards to squeeze between, but both come with the territory for a gig this size.

All shot on the 10-22mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm.