An Evening With Corey Taylor 11-21-2011

An Evening With Corey Taylor
The Waiting Room Lounge
November 21st, 2011
SOLD OUT

What a truly amazing concert. Corey “mothering fucking” Taylor had warned us early on in the evening that this wasn’t “going to be like an a evening with Charlie Sheen.” He elaborated by adding, “That was a fucking train wreck.” In front of a sold out crowd, Taylor, who confessed there would be no dancing this evening and no nudity because “No one wants to see this naked”, opened the evening by reading a selection from his autobiography, Seven Deadly Sins. “You know I’ve got the #50 best selling Christian book? Yeah. Seriously. Can you imagine that 80 year old woman who picks this book up?”
After reading a portion of the Greed chapter, Corey took the time to answer questions from the audience. “This is the Q&A portion of the show. Let me give you the definition of Q&A. You ask questions and I answer them. That doesn’t mean I’m taking requests. Asking me the meaning behind Snuff is a question. Asking me to play Snuff is a request.” Taylor admitted that he’d love to record a 70’s era disco album but only for the shiny suites and bad dancing.
While there were funny stories about psychotic fan gifts like rotting pig hearts, a young woman who wrote her fan letter in blood and wanted Corey to keep her locked in a cage that Taylor could use and only take her out when he wanted to play with her and how Corey’s 9 year old son is dealing with his father’s fame, the touching moment of the evening was Taylor giving us the reasons behind recording Snuff. “It was all Paul. I brought this song to the table and some of the guys were like ‘this is a Stone Sour song’ and I’m like, ‘I didn’t write this for Stone Sour, I wrote this for Slipknot’. Paul was the one who pushed for us to record Snuff. He was the genious behind Slipknot’s more melodic and mellow tracks like Vermillion and Snuff. Writing without him won’t be the same.”
Opening the acoustic show with Taylor’s own versions of Stone Sour and Slipknot songs, we’d grown comfortable with the progress the show was taking. Taylor started the cover portion of the evening by admiring Bruce Springstein and, in his best impression, went on to tell us about how much he looked up The Boss. “I’m a huge huge bruce springteain fan. I’m also a huge fan of the fact that at like 55 years old he still puts on 6 hour concerts well.” “He still gets that fucking face on. And he starts talking for like an hour before a song that’s like 2 minutes. And it’s like the best story you’ve ever heard.” Taylor then threw us all for a loop and cut into the Scooby Doo theme song while maintaining his Bruce Springstein voice. The crowd exploded in cheers and applause. As if that hadn’t lightened the mood, Taylor’s version of the Spongebob Squarepants theme sure did, proving that he’s not all gruff and heartless. The saturday morning cartoon montage served as the perfect segue into Spit It Out. This is the track that first introduced me to Slipknot back in 1996 and a track that I’ve heard Slipknot play live dozens of times. This time around though was the most fun to hear.
Taylor was joined halfway through the set by Jason Rappise. Rappise has toured with Taylor before, in both Junk Beer Kidnap band and as Shawn Economaki’s touring replacement in Stone Sour this past summer. The on stage chemistry between the two of them helped to enhance the cover songs of the evening. While some of the songs played like Elvis’ Burning Love and Skid Row’s I Remember You were more humorous, Rappise and Taylor were spot on the entire night and brought their best with their covers of Alice in Chains’ Down In A Hole and U2’s With Or Without You.
It was an intimate evening full of laughter, a few tears and some great music. Sadly though, you could tell who came to the show because they were fans of Taylor’s music and whom went just to say they saw a solo Corey Taylor. But that’s how every sold out show is and it leaves a lot of fans out in the cold who actually deserve to be a part of the evening.

Setlist;
Dying (Stone Sour cover)
Bother (Stone Sour cover)
Hesitate (Stone Sour cover)
Zzyzx Rd. (Stone Sour cover)
Through Glass (Stone Sour cover)
Scooby Doo theme
Sponge Bob Square Pants Theme
Spit It Out (Slipknot cover)
Snuff (Slipknot cover)
Something I Can Never Have (Nine Inch Nails cover)
Burning Love (Elvis Presley cover)
Down In A Hole (Alice in Chains cover)
Psychosocial (snippet)
With Or Without You (U2 cover)
Dead Flowers (The Rolling Stones cover)
Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd cover)
Outsider (Ramones cover)

Enocre;
I Remember You (Skid Row cover)
Smooth Criminal (Michael Jackson cover snippet)
Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton cover)
X-M@$