In this guide
I'll be honest: the kid in me who spent the early 2000s in Minneapolis basements, eyeliner smudged, screaming along to emo records nobody's parents understood, did not see this coming. Slipknot playing stadiums. Not arenas, not festival main stages. Wembley. Fenway. Soldier Field. SoFi.
But here we are. The band just announced The (sic)est Stadium Tour for summer 2027, and it's the biggest run they've ever booked.
The tour, in plain numbers
The run opens July 3, 2027 at Wembley Stadium in London. From there it heads to North America for 13 dates in July and August, then wraps with five shows in South America in September, according to Stereogum and Loudwire.
US stops on the Live Nation listing include Nationals Park in Washington, DC; Citi Field in Queens; Soldier Field in Chicago; Hersheypark Stadium; Fenway Park; Nashville; Houston; Commerce City, Colorado; SoFi Stadium outside LA on August 13; San Francisco; and Phoenix. There are Canadian dates in Montreal and Toronto too.
The support lineup rotates by city, and it's stacked: Marilyn Manson, Hatebreed, Bring Me The Horizon, Lamb of God, Motionless In White, Lorna Shore, Loathe, Acid Bath, Polyphia, Kublai Khan TX and Vended. Check the listing for who's on your date. General on-sale opened October 2, so if you want in, now's the time.
There's no new album announced yet. The band's recent single "Arsenal" was their first new song in three years, and guitarist Jim Root has said it was just one they could finish sooner, per Loudwire.
What's actually on that stage?
Here's the part I care about as a gear person. Slipknot's sound is famously huge, nine people's worth of noise, but a surprising amount of it starts with gear any working band can own.
Vocals. A 2024 Slipknot gear guide from PMT lists Corey Taylor's microphone as the Shure SM58. The most common vocal mic in rock, on one of the most punishing voices in metal. That tracks. The SM58 has a reputation for surviving drops, spit, sweat and drunk bassists, and that's exactly why it shows up on stages from VFW halls to stadiums.
Kick drum. When Mix magazine went backstage in 2009, the kick drum was miked with a Shure Beta 91 inside and a Shure Beta 52. That pairing is a classic for a reason. The boundary mic inside the drum grabs the attack, and the Beta 52 brings the low-end punch that makes double-kick parts hit you in the chest instead of turning to mush. Today's versions are the Beta 91A and Beta 52A.
Guitars. Rig rundowns from Premier Guitar and PMT show Jim Root running a BOSS NS-2 Noise Suppressor at the front of his board, alongside Orange Rockerverb heads. If you play down-tuned, high-gain stuff, you already know why. A noise gate is what keeps those stop-start riffs tight instead of hissing between hits.
One caveat: bands swap gear constantly, and some of these sources are years old. Don't expect the 2027 stage to match a 2009 photo exactly. But the fundamentals don't change much.
Building your own (sic) rig
You don't need a stadium budget to get the core of this. Here's where I'd start:
- Shure SM58 Dynamic Vocal Microphone: the mic from that gear guide, and the one I'd hand any screamer first.
- Shure BETA 52A Kick Drum Microphone: outside-the-kick punch.
- Shure BETA 91A Kick Drum Microphone: inside-the-kick attack. Pair it with the 52A for that classic two-mic setup.
We ship from California, with next-day delivery across the continental US. That means you can get your rig sorted long before July. See you in the pit.
James Albert is one of Frontrow's editorial voices, a character our team writes as to bring a rock and metal perspective to the gear news we cover.
