But then it was uplifting and cathartic and adventurous, in the case of Slipknot, just painful. It’s not that it was very loud, the problem is that in the wall of sound, all the instruments merged into a confusing mass, which partially swallowed the vocals as well.

The backing bands weren’t the best sonically either, but that’s automatically expected there. The youth group Vended took the stage first, the main line-up includes two sons of Slipknot members, namely singer Griffin Taylor and drummer Simon Crahan. They performed an extraordinary mix of nu-metal, crushing blast beats, catchy grooves and the occasional melody. The inspiration from the main stars is obvious, but the boys will have to find a more distinctive face.

The second supporting band was the Ukrainian metalcore group Jinjer, led by singer Teťana Šmajliuková, of five of her songs, only the torso was left due to poor sounding. Slipknot were expected to be more assertive in this regard, which ended up being all too much.

The masked bandits had an impressive rhythm in the entrance hall. The classic For These About To Rock (We Salute You) roared into the darkened arena, replaced by Get Behind Me Satan And Push by country singer Billie Jo Spears. Then the curtain with the red Slipknot logo flew up and the opulent stage of the main stars appeared to huge cheers.

If my colleague Vlček recently wrote about Harry Styles’ concert, whose production was sometimes drowned out by screaming female fans, such a thing would not be possible in the case of Slipknot. The opening Disasterpiece was rocked to the max and ripped the eardrums. Unfortunately, the individual instruments were completely lost in the confusion, so you could mainly hear the drums, then a kind of jumble of guitars, bass and percussion, and Taylor’s vocals, which were also not the most readable, hovered somewhere above that.

It’s a great pity, because Slipknot’s music works with dynamics, twists and turns, but they had no chance to stand out in such an uncomfortable package for the listener.

It was an engaging show though, Slipknot knows how to put on a good show and Corey Taylor is the man in his place. He communicates with the audience, heckles them – only the unceasing stream of “motherfuckers” and other “fucks” was perhaps not completely necessary – he asks which of the present styles is at Slipknot for the first time, he constantly repeats how much he likes Prague, which is of course a proven game in “this city is the busiest of all”.

However, Slipknot’s Prague concert was unique in one way, Corey Taylor announced in one of the speeches that the new album will be released “very, very soon”, he confirmed that its title The End, So Far does not mean the end of the group, only one chapter and the beginning of another, and then the band played the new composition The Dying Song (Time To Sing) in the concert premiere.

The atmosphere of the concert was electrifying, Slipknot has a loyal, even devoted audience, who take it out of his hand and can make a real cauldron. But when one remembers how sumptuous, also massive, but crystal clear Rammstein’s sound was, one feels sorry that in this case he could not enjoy a similarly comprehensive performance with everything.