I wonder if there is a 'Contemporary Metal' course running in american performing-arts schools?... or perhaps a TV program like 'Rockschool'...( but instead named 'Jockschool'? ). That would go some way to explaining how you can get a band like Saliva. I knew within ten seconds of the band arriving on stage what the whole set was going to be like (Don't you just hate it when that happens?)...Yep..they had a slick sound, heavy low-tuned guitars, the odd big chorus, some singing bits, more heavy guitars, plenty of fucking, but sadly only the kind that punctuates bad sentences... I was hoping beyond hope that somehow they'd turn things on their head and mess with my original opinion... but no... near-computer generated metal. No surprises, no sadness, no joy, no laughs, no tears.. just an hour where I could have been doing something else that would have undoubtedly been more fun. ( and what's with the roadie running on to wipe away the beer splashes from the stage.... you boys got precious li'l cotton wool tootsies or somethin'???)

For those who don't know, the singer in Stone Sour, a certain Corey Taylor, used to front Slipknot, those globally multi-squillion selling antiheroes from Des Moines, Iowa. As such, Corey is used to playing stadiums, and when he came out on stage to the mere two thou' of a sold-out Astoria, the result was a little like the sermon on the mount of metal. Not to put too fine a point on it, if Corey had dropped his turd in a pot and thrown it into the audience, they would have drawn blood fighting over who got to take it home. He ripped up a poster of Gareth Gates on stage, which is one of the most blatantly unimaginative things a metal singer could ever do in front of we cynical brits and the audience were practically blowing him for it!... Yeah, call it ultra confidence, call it professionalism, call it charisma, call it what you want... fact is.... he said jump, you said 'How High?'. Because of the sheer balls of Corey Taylor, Stone Sour managed to retain my interest during an overlong set, but in reality I wondered whether they were that dissimilar to Saliva. What do you get when you slow down the frenetic adrenaline thrash of Slipknot and add a bit more melodic singing (given that that frenetic thrashy chaos was what made Slipknot different) ???
.... you get a rather conventional modern metal band. Very polished, very powerful, but ultimately lacking in that certain something that makes a mark on history. With his background, I think it's quite fair to expect a lot more of Mr.Taylor and his cohorts.

Which brings me back to Winnebago Deal. They didn't have the huge money behind them, or the history of huge audiences. Neither have they been lucky enough to appear on the soundtrack of a blockbuster film (Both Corey Taylor and Saliva singer Josey Scott were on the soundtrack of Spider-Man ,Josey Scott duetting with Chad Kroeger of Nickelback) . What Winnebago Deal do have, over and above all the 'superstars' on display today, is originality.An overload of copycat and identikit bands is steering metal up a dead end .... Thank god somebody is trying a few different directions.