By David Lucas, Rock At Night Orlando
Live Review: Corey Taylor’s CMF2 World Tour – House of Blues, Orlando-September 19, 2023
Corey Taylor brought his CMF2 World Tour to the House of Blues Orlando and did nothing short of ripping the place apart. If you’re a Corey Taylor fan and have heard or seen him live, you know why I’m saying this, parental advisory for this review.
As the intro winds down, drummer Dustin Robert is the first to hit the stage. Taking his seat and hitting the first beats, guitarist Zach Throne came running out from stage left followed by bassist Eliot Lorango and guitarist Christian Martucci. The band starts kicking out Post Traumatic Blues as Corey Taylor casually walks out from stage left in black jeans, Wargasm t-shirt and magenta colored jacket and starts rocking in front of the drums. Strobes are flashing, stage lighting is going off from the top to the bottom. CMFT is lit up across the back of the stage and the room is going wild. Corey is running around on stage grabbing bottles of water, removing the caps and slinging the water out into the audience. A couple of the bottles he takes a mouthful and blows it out into the air. As the empty bottles leave his hands, fans are already jumping in the air to see who can take one of this home as a souvenir.
Corey asks if everyone is ready to party and off comes the jacket. Going back to 2003 with Stone Sours Tumult for the second song of the evening. Zach makes a guitar change and Corey steps to the mic strapped with a guitar as he addresses everyone with the night being special. It’s the second sellout of the tour. Third song is from his 2020 CMFT album Black Eyes Blue. For the first CMF2 song of the night, up next is We Are the Rest. Asking the audience to help sing along, Corey gives the lyrics to a specific part “No way to beat me, no way to win”. The song starts and Corey sings a line and points to the audience and the powerful sound of “No way to beat me, no way to win”. This has to be one of the best audience participation I have ever heard at the House of Blues.
Asking for help with another song, It’s another Stone Sour, Song #3 followed by the number one active rock song in the country, Beyond. Taking a minute to talk to the audience, Corey says one line “I’ll tell you what, Before I forget” and the screams open up, everyone knows what is coming next. Corey stops, picks his head up and says “nah, I’m just kidding, but before I forget” and the screams go again. “Before I forget, I want you to make some noise for our friends that opened the show for us tonight, Luna Aura”. “But seriously, Before I forget I’d like to introduce my band”.
Zach Throne: Guitar
Christian Martucci: Guitar
Dustin Robert: Drums
Eliot Lorango: Bass
“Oh, before I forget, it’s the name of this next song” It’s the first Slipknot song of the evening, Before I forget.
Bring a bar stool out to the center stage You can almost guess at what’s coming next. As you can hear people talking “he’s going to do SpongeBob”, SpongeBob is yelled by the audience. Corey walks out with an acoustic guitar and takes the seat on the stool. Pointing out into the audience Corey says “hey hey hey, Listen to security knock it the fuck off we’re all having a good fucking time. That means everyone who’s pointing fingers suck it up be a fucking man, settle the fuck down we’re all having a good fucking time. I will not fucking tolerate bullshit at my show. And just for that you get this”. “Are you ready kids?” Yes, It’s the theme song for “SpongeBob SquarePants”. Watching this song being performed at a metal show just how much of a kid we all still have in us. The participation for this was just as much, if not more than most of the songs performed this evening. “Alright, is everybody settling down now?” With his acoustic guitar still out, Corey makes one strum of a familiar note. The scream starts up and Corey asks “oh, we’re friends again?” The volume up singing coming from the audience was almost overpowering Corey’s own voice, it’s Slipknot Snuff.
“Y’all know me, I’m a whore. Do you want to help me sing one more?” It’s another Stone Sour, Absolute ZeroCorey addressed the kids in the audience. “I have to say something to the kids in the audience.Hold on, I know, you have irresponsible parents. I know this is Disney, Don’t repeat the words that Uncle Corey uses. They will get you suspended, And they might get you fucking arrested too, to be honest. Depending on who you say it to, but That is the problem when you make a career just out of talk shit”. It’s another from CMF2, Talk Shit.
It’s a new version of an old favorite, Corey starts them off with Bother, another Stone Sour following it up with Through Glass. Finishing up, The band exits the stage. The chants of “Corey, Corey”, Corey” come from the audience.
Moments later, Corey and the guys come walking back out for the encore. Corey grabs the mic “listen, we have shit to do. We have shits to take, well, that’s about it. We have a lot of shit’s to take”. “Okay, we’re going to make this quick, Make Some Noise if you like one more song. Make Some Noise if you’d like two more songs. Okay, we’re going to give you three more songs”. Now is when it starts to get a little weird. Corey asks everyone to say “oh yeah” (Audience repeats), and in a different tone Oh yeah again (Audience repeats), and in a porn sounding voice ah yeah. (Audience repeats) “You guys are perverts,” he says. “I want you all to stick your arm out like you’re driving, you’ve got one arm on the steering wheel. And I want you to nod, and I want you to go oh yeah. (Audience repeats) He then tells the audience, “you are fucking ridiculous”. He then says, “alright, repeat after me”, “I push my fingers into my eyes”.
The lights go down, the audience screams, the band starts off with Duality, one of Slipknot’s biggest songs. You can hear the audience singing the next line, “it’s the only thing that slowly stops the ache, But it’s made of all the things I have to take”. Corey jumps in and helps with “Jesus, it never ends, it works its way inside, If the pain goes on”. As Corey shush’s the audience he speaks into the mic,
“I have screamed until my veins collapsed
I’ve waited as my time’s elapsed
Now, all I do is live with so much hate
I’ve wished for this, I’ve bitched at that
I’ve left behind this little fact
You cannot kill what you did not create
I’ve gotta say what I’ve gotta say
And then, I swear, I’ll go away
But I can’t promise you’ll enjoy the noise
I guess I’ll save the best for last
My future seems like one big past
You’re left with me ’cause you left me no choice”.
Everyone knows the next line again and sings along, “I push my fingers into my eyes!” For the rest of the song the audience is singing loud enough that you can barely hear Corey singing his own song.
For the second Song of The Encore, it’s only the second time they played it on the tour. On the Dark Side, by John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band and adding a little R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.” by John Mellencamp to the middle made for a great heavy metal sound to some old great hits.
“I want you all to make some noise for the, late, great, motherfucker of all times, Make some noise for Lemmy fucking Kilmister.” Eliot rips out on the bass with Ace of Spades, by Motörhead to end the show.
Gallery
A SNIPPET of Corey Taylor
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