On May 4th, 2004, Slipknot released their iconic anthem "Duality" as the first single from their third full-length, Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses). A couple months later, after the song had overtaken the airwaves to become their most successful single yet, nu-metal's most fearsome masked miscreants took to Jimmy Kimmel Live! and delivered an unbeatable performance of the tune in a small club setting full of raging fans.
At this point in their career, Slipknot had recently established themselves as one of the biggest metal bands in the world, and they touted their status by playing massive festivals like Download and Rock in Rio all summer long. As a nine-man unit with gigantic pieces of gear, the band remain unparalleled at filling out a festival stage, and that Herculean presence makes their rare intimate sets that much more exciting.
For this performance of "Duality," the band were playing just a few feet from roughly a hundred giddy fans who were leaping, fist-pumping and screaming along with a Beatlemania energy. Each member is clearly feeding off the electricity of the crowd, but frontman Corey Taylor is having a particularly great night behind the mic; leaning downward in front of the stage and barking his lines with the sweaty ferocity of a hardcore vocalist. The whole track is bonkers, but the apex arrives when the band pauses on "eyes" during the final hook, and the audio is entirely overtaken by cacophonous fan shrieks.
Anyone who was actually there for this set is insanely lucky, but the rest of us can revisit the footage above via YouTube.
