13

Historical End To The Weekend

It’s been a trying few weeks for Stone Sour with the sudden death of Slipknot’s Paul Gray obviously impacting on the band but with chants erupting through the saturated crowd before the band takes to the stage; it is clear that at Donington they have plenty of support.

Diving straight into the thunderous ‘Mission Statement’ that rumbles furiously into ‘Reborn’, Stone Sour immediately invigorate the “bunch of soggy mother*******” as Corey Taylor dubs those watching. Constantly beseeched by chants of “Corey” the Stone Sour front man seemed genuinely in awe of the reception he received, playfully joking with the crowd and content to chat between chants and songs. Striding across the stage, Taylor delivered a throat shredding rendition of ‘Made Of Scars’ that quickly had the crowd joining in whilst the calmer melodic twinge of ‘Sillyworld’ guaranteed that all were singing along.

For all the fun and joking that Taylor displayed there was no escaping the sadness that has surrounded the band recently and as he took to the stage alone, it was with added poignancy. Struggling to maintain any resemblance of composure, Taylor told the crowd that he was going to play a song he hasn’t played on this tour so far, informing them that he wasn’t going to dwell on things but that “this is for my friend”. Literally choking back tears, Taylor proceeded to play ‘Bother’, fighting from breaking down as his voice cracked with emotion for what must has been one the most emotionally charged songs of the entire weekend and which saw the crowd fall silent, willing the Stone Sour singer on only with a burst of “Paul Gray” chants as the raw emotion took hold of all at those present at the Dio stage. Refusing to stop, Taylor and Stone Sour went straight into ‘Through Glass’, again welcoming a rush of added vocals courtesy of the audience after which Taylor apologised and promised to up the tempo and have fun from now on, even offering to teach everyone a dance that he would do with them during a highly charged and hilarious ‘Idle Hands’.

From here in Taylor was intent on having fun, even getting the camera man to grab a silly hat out of the crowd for himself and Shawn Economaki to wear as they unleashed ‘Get Inside’ and ‘Hell And Consequences’ leaving the violent aggression of ‘30/30 �" 150’ to bring Stone Sour’s set to a close, a set that will go down in history as being one of the best. Forget AC/DC, for those about to rock, Stone Sour, we salute you.