Slipkot has confirmed plans to headline a triple-threat hard rock arena tour with Lamb Of God and Shadows Fall rounding out the bill. The Subliminal Verses tour, sponsored by Fuse, begins March 4 at the Hartford (Conn.) Civic Center, and will play nearly 40 dates before concluding May 2 at the Omaha (Neb.) Civic Auditorium. The full list of specific dates and venues has not yet been announced.
“Dear Lord, what a mess,” says Lamb Of God vocalist Randy Blythe, considering the tour. “Thousands of screaming freaks, beer and God knows what else flying everywhere, large metal objects being smashed together, innocent bystanders weeping in confusion over the general mayhem… Oh wait, that’s just the party in the parking lot before the show starts. Come inside and the real fun will begin. Have your mama pack you a lunch, cause it’s gonna be a long, hard night!”
The tour will be Slipknot’s first full-tilt spectacle in support of its latest Roadrunner album, “Vol. 3 (The Subliminal Verses).” Early in the year, the band headlined the Jagermeister Music Tour where its sets were restricted by the run’s small venues, followed in the summer by a stint on the Ozzfest tour, where the festival’s limited-length sets kept the Des Moines, Iowa-based nine-piece act on a short leash.
Released in June, the Rick Rubin-produced “Vol. 3” debuted at No. 2 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 860,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Two tracks from the set netted the group Grammy nominations in the best hard rock performance (“Duality”) and best metal performance (“Vermilion”) categories.
Lamb Of God’s sophomore album “Ashes of the Wake” (Prosthetic/Epic) debuted in September at No. 27 on The Billboard 200, while Shadows Fall’s “The War Within” bowed in October at No. 20. The discs have sold 111,000 and 116,000 copies, respectively.
