Footage of Slipknot’s 1999 concert in Cleveland, Ohio, has been uploaded to Youtube in its entirety.
The gig has become infamous for hosting a fight between the nu metal nine-piece and fans of their then-rival band, Mushroomhead. Attendees, who were watching Slipknot in Mushroomhead’s hometown, reportedly jeered the band and threw batteries at them.
As the embedded video below shows, Slipknot responded physically. After the song (sic), vocalist Corey Taylor is heard screaming, “Step up, pussy! Step up, bitch!” Percussionist Shawn ‘Clown’ Crahan then appears to hop to the barrier and start punching members of the crowd.
Once security personnel step to the barrier, Taylor says to the agitators in the audience, “I knew you guys would fucking show up, man. Do you guys want to see a fight or do you want to see a fucking show, man?!”
“All petty fucking bullshit aside, are you ready to have a good fucking time tonight?!” Taylor asks the crowd before Wait And Bleed. “Because over my fucking dead body will I have anybody ruin this fucking night for anybody here!”
The singer continues to rally against the rabble-rousers after Surfacing, shouting, “You can’t fucking kill us, people! […] You think any of these people are gonna let this shit fucking end?!”
Watch the full footage of the show via the player below.
The Slipknot/Mushroomhead feud kicked off in the late 1990s. Fans of Mushroomhead, who formed in 1993, accused the newer Slipknot of ripping off the band, as both had large lineups of masked members. The 1999 Cleveland gig was the only time the rivalry came to blows, though the two acts engaged in a war of words in the press for much of the 2000s.
Of Mushroomhead, Taylor told Rock Sound in 2002, “I’ll fucking go to fucking Cleveland and grab every fucking one of them by their stupid fucking masks and I will put a knee to their faces until they pass out from loss of blood!”
In 2007, then-Mushroomhead vocalist Jeffrey Hatrix accused Slipknot of being “clones of us” manufactured by record label Roadrunner. Drummer Steve “Skinny” Felton claimed that Slipknot “traded a platinum record for dignity, honour and respect”. He added, “Corey Taylor says, ‘You cannot kill what you did not create.’ Maybe so – but I guess you can sure as fuck sell what you stole.”
Hatrix later claimed to have known and encouraged the people who tried to disrupt Slipknot’s 1999 Cleveland show. He said, “I know all the people who did it and I did personally paint [their] ‘Cleveland Supports Mushroomhead’ and ‘Slipknot Go Home’ signs. But I wasn’t there and I didn’t know the complete extent of what they were going to do. But, hey, these guys are men, right? […] Welcome to Cleveland, bitches!”
Taylor reflected on the Cleveland show during a Q&A in 2012. “People came down and threw everything but rocks at us,” he said. “They hit Paul [Gray, bassist] in the face with a fucking padlock the size of my fist, while we were onstage!
“When we got done playing, we took all our shit off and went into the audience,” he continued. “There were a lot of them, but there was all nine of us, there was Machine Head and all our friends in Amen. Let’s just say, we fucking handled it right there.”
In the new issue of Metal Hammer, Felton reflects on the Slipknot feud and downplays the animosity between the bands, claiming the back-and-forth was pushed by the media.
“A bit of it over time has been inflated,” he tells Hammer’s Paul Travers. “I wasn’t there personally [at the 1999 Cleveland show] and I’ve heard 20 different versions over the years. And let’s not forget that it was popular in that era to have beefs in bands and stack people against each other. It was huge with the West Coast and East Coast rappers. The media fuelled it and fans bought into it.”
Slipknot are currently touring North America to celebrate 25 years of their self-titled debut album. They’ll play across Europe and the UK in December. See their full list of 20224 concerts below.
Mushroomhead released their ninth album, Call The Devil, on August 9 via Napalm.
Slipknot 2024 tour dates:
Sep 07: Auburn White River Amphitheatre, WA
Sep 08: Ridgefield RV Inn Styles Resorts Amphitheater, WA
Sep 09: Louisville Louder Than Life, KY
Sep 11: Nampa Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater, ID
Sep 13: Inglewood Intuit Dome, CA
Sep 15: Phoenix Talking Stick Resort Amphitheatre, AZ
Sep 17: Austin Moody Center, TX
Sep 18: Dallas Dos Equis Pavilion, TX
Sep 21: Des Moines Water Works Park, IA
Oct 11: Sacramento Aftershock Festival, CA
Oct 19: São Paulo Knotfest Brasil, Brazil
Nov 08: Guadalajara Calle 2, Mexico
Nov 09: Mexico City Parque Bicentenario, Mexico
Dec 05: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands
Dec 06: Dortmund Westfalenhalle, Germany
Dec 08: Stuttgart Schleyerhalle, Germany
Dec 09: Leipzig Quarterback Immobilien Arena, Germany
Dec 11: Zurich Hallenstadion, Switzerland
Dec 12: Paris Accorhotel Arena, France
Dec 14: Leeds First Direct Arena, UK
Dec 15: Glasgow OVO Hydro, UK
Dec 17: Manchester Co-op Live Arena, UK
Dec 18: Birmingham Utilita Arena, UK
Dec 20: London O2 Arena, UK
Dec 21: London O2 Arena, UK
