Sunday June 1st – Carling Academy Bristol
I wasn't too fussed about going to the gig to start with but Dok convinced me and so on sunday we headed over the water to Bristol.
Happily we didn't get massively lost getting to the venue, which was nice.
After purchasing some band merchandise Dok took leave of his senses and bought us drinks from the bar. Now I understand that venues inflate the prices, but really the percentage of profits raked in at such events even if each person bought only 1 drink .
Anyway back to the gig.
We caught the last 3 songs of the support act named illuminatus, who seemed pretty good. From what I've seen there was a different support band on each gig of the tour.
At 8:30 Ministry took to a fenced off stage with a lowered area in front of Al's goat skull adorned mic stand. The band strolled on with Al looking like a metal version of Fagan, including a hat that appeared to have animal ear attached to it.
Getting right into the swing of things the first song was Let's Go followed up with The Dick Song.
The next 3 songs also from the last sucker album Watch Yourself, Life is Good and finally The Last Sucker.
After unleashing the last sucker tracks the focus changed to the “Houses of the Molé” playing the first 4 tracks in order: No W, Waiting, Worthless and finally Wrong.
Switching to yet another album the tracks came think and fast from Rio Grande Blood, starting with the title song Rio Grande Blood followed by Senor Peligro. LiesLiesLies one of my favourites from the album was next and this section of the gig was completed with the song Khyber Pass.
So after an hour I managed to mosh away to the last 3 albums, I really should have kept my energy as the next section was to be the most furious with a selection of tracks from the earlier albums.
Beginning with So What each following song upped the BPM and got the crowd moving. Then came N.W.O. the one alot of people had been holding back for, it was quickly followed up by Just One Fix. The last song in this section was the wonderful Thieves which was one of the first Ministry tracks I ever heard and one that encouraged my following for the band.
A poor number from the earlier albums but classic choices all the same.
The final part of the show comprised of covers, the first was Just Got Paid by ZZ Top which was fantastic and quite fitting as it was from the 'Rio Grande Mud' album that Ministry parodied with there 2006 album. The next two songs appear on the last Ministry album “Cover Up” starting with Roadhouse Blues originally by The Doors and to be honest this cover is fast, heavy and a great change to the original.
The last song to be played was Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World which starts in very deep mellow tones and builds up into a crescendo, bursting into a fast and frenzied 2nd half of the song.
Now there was a bit of talk both after the gig and about other shows that considering it was a farewell tour there was too much new material and less from the older albums. Admittedly the setlist wasn't the same as they played for the US leg of the tour but I feel that the post Paul Barker albums were more writing and performing with other musicians but all things considered it was still a rather fitting set for their goodbye.
Overall it was a great gig to attend and I'm rather glad I went.
Adios Ministry!