When Slipknot brought the All Hope Is Gone tour to London, they didn’t bloody well do just one night, but three. We sent Hugh Platt down to the final show of their residency to see if they’ve still got it after ten years at the top.

On any other night, Machine Head would’ve, could’ve, should’ve usurped the headliners, and claimed tonight as their own. Their early millennial lull, and subsequent resurrection – to heights beyond even they could’ve hoped – has seen them teach whole new era of metal fans to chant “Machine Fuck-ing Head! Machine Fuck-ing Head!” When the San Franciscans stride off stage, the Gods themselves would be nervous to follow them.

But it’s a gang of Devils, not Gods that are taking the stage next. On the third and final night of Slipknot’s residence at the Hammersmith Apollo, no-one’s about to upstage The Nine.

“Slipknot? Just another nu-metal band,” metal elitists chime. “They’re for kids. They’re just rubbish. Mall-core.”

Take your right hand and slap yourself hard in the face. Go on, do it again. That’s exactly what I’d be doing to you if I caught you thinking thoughts like that. You think the masks, the image, the “gimmicks”, cheapens Slipknot’s music? The breakneck scorch of ‘Liberate’, or the batshit-crazy creepiness of ‘Prosthetics’, mere fractions of tonight’s set, are evidence to the contrary.

Watch the video to ‘Dead Memories’ by Slipknot

Slipknot pounced on the passing figure of mainstream metal, plucked out its eye with a poke of their thumb, then proceeded to fuck its empty eye-socket like a mastiff OD’ing on Spanish Fly. The Iowans grasped that being heavy as hell didn’t mean they couldn’t hold more hooks than fisherman’s footlocker. Slipknot forced extremity onto the public at large, without which a whole generation of kids could’ve grown up thinking that Limp Bizkit and Incubus were the boundaries of metal. Slipknot changed that; Slipknot stopped that.

Even though All Hope Is Gone is mere weeks old, tonight the band don’t favour it at the expense of their back catalogue – from the rapid fire wordplay of ‘Spit It Out’ and the chest-beating declaration of war with ‘The Heretic Anthem’, right through to the more melodic ‘Duality’ and the rallying stomp of ‘Psychosocial’, this greatest hits set honours each album equally.

Watch the video to ‘Duality’ by Slipknot

As the show reaches its climax, Corey Taylor takes a moment to remind us that next year will see the tenth anniversary of Slipknot’s self-titled debut (no, Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat still doesn’t count). As he brandishes aloft the platinum record awarded it’s earned, and although you can’t tell for sure, we just know that he’s grinning like a madman under that mask.