Watch Slipknot Make Their Network Television Debut In 2000

Anyone who watched Slipknot perform All Out Life and Unsainted on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this past Friday witnessed a polished, practiced team of musicians that knows what they're all about. But the dudes in that band weren't born with that confidence -- it took years of practice, thousands of shows, and dozens of televised live performances to build up that kind of professional readiness. To see just how far Slipknot have come to be the band they are today, one only has to watch their first network TV performance, playing Wait And Bleed on Late Night With Conan O'Brien in 2000.

It's not that Slipknot aren't awesome in this footage -- quite the opposite, one can instantly see the potential for world domination lurking beneath the surface of the band. Everyone is giving it their all, down to Mick Thomson frantically twitching around like a broken toy. What's noticeable, though, is how young the band feels. There's a hint of speediness to them that shows how nervous they are to finally be performing on TV. Everyone's clustered together at first, Corey Taylor's a little breathless at times, and guys like Jim Root and Shawn Crahan are just banging their heads rather than engaging the audience. Compare that with the terrifying asylum messiahs of this week's Kimmel performance, and you see just how much this band have grown in twenty years.

Watch Slipknot show mainstream America what it has spawned in the clip below:

Oh man, we forgot how utterly fucking terrifying Corey Taylor's original mask used to be.

Slipknot's new album, We Are Not Your Kind, drops August 9th. The band will follow up the release with a huge U.S. tour, so catch them at one of the dates below:

July 2019

26 Mountain View, CA, Shoreline Amphitheatre
27 San Bernardino, CA, San Manuel Amphitheater

August 2019

01 Salt Lake City, UT, USANA Amphitheatre
03 Albuquerque, NM, sleta Amphitheater
04 Phoenix, AZ, Ak-Chin Pavilion
06 Denver, CO, Pepsi Center
08 Lincoln, NE, Pinnacle Bank Arena
10 Des Moines, IA, Iowa State Fairgrounds (Slipknot and Gojira only)
11 Tinley Park, IL, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
12 Clarkston, MI, DTE Energy Music Theatre
14 Virginia Beach, VA, Veterans United Home Loans Amphitheater
16 Noblesville, IN, Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center
17 Bonner Springs, KS, Providence Medical Center Amphitheater
18 Maryland Heights, MO, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
20 Toronto, ON, Budweiser Stage
21 Saratoga Springs, NY, Saratoga Performing Arts Center
23 Burgettstown, PA, KeyBank Pavilion
24 Scranton, PA, The Pavilion at Montage Mountain
25 Darien Center, NY, Darien Lake Amphitheater
27 Mansfield, MA, The Xfinity Center
28 Wantagh, NY, Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater
30 Holmdel, NJ, PNC Bank Arts Center
31 Camden, NJ, BB&T Pavilion

September 2019

01 Bristow, VA, Jiffy Lube Live
03 Alpharetta, GA, Ameris Bank Amphitheatre
04 Tampa, FL, MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre
06 Austin, TX, Austin 360 Amphitheater
07 Dallas, TX, Dos Equis Pavilion
08 The Woodlands, TX, The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

Read this next:

• Watch Slipknot perform Unsainted and All Out Life for the first time
• The first reaction to Slipknot's new song Unsainted
• We break down the new video for Slipknot's Unsainted