MUDVAYNE L.D. 50 25th Anniversary Tour - The Final Night

Mudvayne capped off their thirty date tour with a stop at Mohegan Sun Arena with Static-X and Vended as support.

Written by Kathi Gullage

Photography by Holly Roy Photography

Vended (pronounced ven-DEAD) is a five man powerhouse featuring two offspring of members of Slipknot. Vocalist Griffin Taylor is Corey Taylor’s son, and drummer Simon Crahan is the son of Shawn “Clown” Crahan. They were joined by Jeremiah Pugh on bass and guitarists Cole Espeland and Jayden Scovel. Vended served up a six song set of heavy thrash groove metal, all cuts from their 2024 self titled studio album. Taylor enthusiastically yelled at the crowd. “C’mon you mother fuckers, I can’t fucking hear you out there! For the next few songs I wanna see chaos in that pit!” before they launched into “Nihilism” and “Ded To Me”, which ignited a circle pit. “You mother fuckers having a good time? We love to see the support for live music. We are Vended from Des Moine, Iowa.” No one was shocked, they literally have the DNA of Slipknot in their veins. “This next song is about living up to your expectations…..it’s called “Am I The Only One”. Next came “The Far Side” where Taylor called out “Connecticut! Get your flashlights out, lighters, anything that shines and light this place up!” Before tearing into “Pitiful” he roared “C’mon Connecticut! Show us what you’re made of! When this shit kicks in I wanna see a circle pit!” And he got what he requested. They closed with “Asylum”, praised the other bands and their touring family, and said they’d be back. The sound mix was good, except the bass drum was too loud and not proportionate. The guitarists banged their heads like old school thrash metal and I ate that shit up. Wanna nosh on some next gen Slipknot with a twist? Check out Vended, a great choice to open this line up.

Static-X was up next with a set that proved the band’s Evil Disco legacy is alive and well. Reformed to honor late frontman Wayne Static, I’m personally convinced he would 100% approve. This was my second time seeing them this year as they marked the 25th anniversary of Wisconsin Death Trip. Static-X has sold over three million records and released eight studio albums. They touched on four of em in their thirteen song set. We were greeted by mascot Static Man, sporting a giant disco ball head with a jack o lantern face, shining a spotlight into the audience with Vincent Price’s Thriller intro playing in the background. The band took the stage and frontman Xer0, a Wayne Static cyborg with glowing red eyes, wasted no time and immediately belted out one of nine tracks from Wisconsin Death Trip with “Bled For Days”. Cannons shot fake snow over the crowd and a circle pit commenced. “Connecticut! Are you fuckin ready?!” preceded the WDT title track followed by “Fix”. “OK! Are you fuckers ready? Get those hands in the air! Everybody with me!” Xero jumped up and down and the fans followed suit for “Terminator Oscillator” off of Project Regeneration Vol. 1. The set went dark for a few moments before they tore right into “Sweat Of The Bud” and “Love Dump”. “Well hello there Connecticut, how the fuck are ya? Thank you to every single one of you, thank you for comin out, spending Sunday with us, we appreciate you very much! Imma shut the fuck up and play ya some old school WDT shit.” A towering prop I refer to as FrankenStatic appeared, cannons shot bubbles that blanketed the pit, and the fans went wild for “I Am”. “We thank you for your time, we thank you for your attention, we thank you for your energy!” The crowd was indeed energetic when they got two from Machine with “Black And White” and “Get To The Gone”. Xer0 gave a shout out to the other bands and crew. “Connecticut we are Static-X from Los Angeles, California, here against all odds! Get your hands up!” They fed us a slice of Start A War with “Dirthouse”, followed by probably the closest we’ll ever get to a Static-X love song with “Cold”. Images of Wayne Static (1965-2014) flashed on giant screens. They pulled out all the stops for “I’m With Stupid”, giant balloons dropped from the ceiling, bubble cannons went off, Static Man danced on stage and Xer0 held a super long note at the end. “Thank you for coming out early for evil disco! This has been the best tour this year!” The finale was “Push It” and the whole place erupted for it. Static-X OGs: bassist Tony Campos, drummer Ken Jay and guitarist Koichi Fukuda, who is so fun to watch, make up the band. Their live shows are consistently solid, great sound mix of their industrial nu-metal fusion, light shows, props, and energy. Catch this living breathing tribute live when ya can, cuz you could use a shot of Evil Disco.

After a too long intro, Mudvayne took the stage and immediately punched us in the face with an onslaught of their signature blend of progressive metal fusion peppered with loud aggression. This was a Mudvayne crowd and they went wild from the pit to the rafters for “Dig”, the first of nine tracks off of L.D. 50 in the fifteen song set. The anniversary celebration of the LP continued with “Internal Primates Forever” and “-1”. Singer and frontman Chad Gray chugged a drink and the audience quieted. “You ain’t gotta shut up. On the contrary, make all the noise you want, this is your night!” He then droned on for a bit about heavy metal saving lives, being a family and tribe and at one point remarked “Jesus Christ I can’t string a sentence together. It’s been a long run.” He continued the love fest with the fans which was an interesting juxtaposition to his appearance. I would describe it as scary horror clown that borrowed Leatherface’s apron. Eventually

he encouraged the crowd to yell “Shut the fuck up Chad!” and he did, and they got back to more cuts from L.D. 50 with “Severed” and “Death Blooms”. There were a few times throughout the gig where Chad would jump on the top of the barricade, which is probably more narrow than a balance beam, and get supported by fans as he serenaded them to their faces. The singer didn’t show any fear being on the precarious perch and the loyals never dropped him. “Cradle” was floor shaking loud and I spotted a lone security guard in the back of the pit jamming the fuck out. Chad called out a twelve year old girl up front. “How old are you? Front row at a Mudvayne show. Welcome!” “Under My Skin” and “Prod” were on deck before Chad spoke again. “Anyone wanna go down a dark fuckin rabbit hole with me? I wanna see everyone going off!” Multiple pits and crowd surfers went off during the whole set. “Nothing To Gein” wrapped up the L.D. 50 portion of the set and it was a highlight for me. I loved the duet with guitarist Marcus Rafferty and Chad held the end note long as fuck, can’t believe his throat didn’t just burst in half. Chad and Marcus sat crumpled together on a riser as the set went dark. Rounding out the sonic delivery was drummer Matthew McDonough and bassist Ryan Martinie. I thought I saw a couple of musicians lurking in the shadows on stage, but I was unable to unmask them. The greatest hits part of the set kicked off with “Dull Boy” (A New Game), “Sticks And Stones” (2025 Single) and “World So Cold” (The End Of All Things To Come). “We are thankful and grateful for you coming out! We’ve had some of you from the beginning and some we’ve collected along the way. We appreciate you, thank you for supporting all heavy metal bands! Marcus, let’s light this place up!” And they did just that with “Determined” (Lost And Found) and “Not Falling” which Chad demonstrated by visiting the fans again and literally not falling. Gray then droned on again for a bit about love and togetherness, get pushed down get back up type stuff. He did a shout out to Mudvayne guitarist Greg Tribbett, who had to sit the tour out as he recently lost his wife. “Greg wanted us to go out on tour anyway. We love you Greg and we’re coming home.” He primed the fans for the last song with “Is everyone happy?” The moshers and crowd surfers went off as they closed with their biggest hit “Happy?”. And that’s how their mob left, happy.