Stone Sour, Downthesun, On A Pale Horse, Index Case
Roadrunner Records Reveal Concert
June 23, 2002
Toad Holler, Des Moines, Iowa
Words and Photos by Adam Tibbott
Photos digitally restored from original Kodak film negatives.
Sometimes being in the right place at the right time can also mean being in the wrong place at the absolute worst possible time.
This one requires a bit of a backstory. On December 7, 2001, I walked into the old House of Bricks on Merle Hay Road in Des Moines to see my friend Corey perform with his new band called Super Ego. At the time, no one knew that Super Ego was actually going to be the next chapter of Corey Taylor’s pre-Slipknot band, Stone Sour. Back then, Corey Taylor and Jim Root were already members of Slipknot, but Slipknot was still very much built around the mystery of their masks. While dedicated fans had begun piecing together who the members were, seeing Corey perform without a mask in another band was still something very few people had experienced.
Looking back, that small club show feels like a preview of something much bigger that none of us fully understood at the time. A few months later, everything would change.
Stone Sour eventually signed with Roadrunner Records in 2002, and on June 23rd they played their official comeback show at Toad Holler in Des Moines. With Deana’s help I managed to sneak a camera into the venue and snapped two photographs of the performance. After the show, I posted those out-of-focus photos on one of the Slipknot message boards that many of us followed in those days.
I thought I was simply sharing photos from a great concert. Roadrunner Records saw it VERY differently.
Not long after the images appeared online, I was contacted by the label’s legal department. To say they weren’t happy would be an incredible understatement. Roadrunner’s plan was to introduce Stone Sour, and Corey Taylor’s unmasked return to the rock world, on their own schedule. Instead, some dude from Des Moines had posted photos online before they were ready. The conversation was intimidating and full of legal terms. They even asked if I had legal representation. I was warned that I would be blacklisted from photographing future concerts and that legal action was a possibility if the images remained online. As someone who was still finding my place as a concert photographer, it was terrifying.
I immediately removed the two photos and apologized. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. Rather than ending my relationship with Roadrunner before it had even begun, we were able to work everything out.
Ironically, that experience ended up putting me on Roadrunner Records’ radar in a completely unexpected way. Instead of closing doors, it eventually opened them. In the years that followed, I continued photographing many Roadrunner artists with legitimate media credentials, something that almost didn’t happen because of two blurry photos taken at a small club in Des Moines, Iowa.
It’s funny how history works. That first Super Ego show at House of Bricks wasn’t just an early glimpse of Stone Sour before the world knew what was coming. It also became one of the most unforgettable lessons of my photography passion project, a reminder that sometimes a single photograph can become much bigger than the person who took it.
