On Sunday evening there was a bit of role reversal as Boy Child drove us up the M8 towards Glasgow. For once I was chaperoning him rather than it being the other way round. We were heading for the Hydro. Around this time last year, I had bought him two tickets for this gig for Christmas and had joked that I didn’t want to have to go to it.

And here we were!

The science centre car park was already filling up as we turned in. By the time we’d walked across to the venue we could see lengthy queues had already formed.

So, who were we off to see for my last gig of 2024?

Slipknot!

And this is where I’m going to deviate from the norm and not actually say too much about the show as it wouldn’t be fair.

Slipknot are currently touring to celebrate the 25^th anniversary of their debut album. This is not an album I am familiar with. I like a handful of their songs but none of the ones on this offering.

There was one support act, Bleed From Within, who were on stage around 7.30pm. As they described themselves “five guys from Hamilton…well four from Hamilton and one from East Kilbride”, it was great to hear them living their dream. I say hear them rather than see them as we’d opted to stay at the back and I couldn’t see a damn thing.

We moved slightly further forward for Slipknot, but I still couldn’t see much.

As I said, these guys are not my band of choice but from the rapturous welcome they received there were about ten thousand others who were loving it. Two video screens at the side of the stage meant that I could see what was going on. These guys are clearly awesome at what they do and it was a lively performance but it’s just not my taste in music.

The set itself was surprisingly short at just fourteen songs and that included a three-song encore.

I suspect if I was a die hard fan, I might feel a bit short-changed on this one….

It was a great way to wrap up my 2024 gig season as its not too often that you get to see a band of that stature but to be fair, it was wasted on me. Give me Stone Sour or Corey Taylor’s solo show over that any day. Sorry.