Live Music Hall, Cologne, Germany11th June 2008
Ministry, My uncle the Wolf, Select Your Fighter
Ministry will be history soon! After 27 years of making history, Al Jourgensen’s musical baby will call it quits a day after their final “C U LA Tour” and Jourgensen will pursue other projects. So the last chance to see MINISTRY on stage - a chance not to be missed!
Select Your Fighter
The Berlin-based band SELECT YOUR FIGHTER had the catchy job to open the very long night in Cologne. The band - which features German musicians as well as from Texas, USA - delivers sweaty but spacey Rock ’n’ Roll, which is so keyboard-heavy that most US-Americans would call it “Industrial”. ;-) However you wanna label the sound, it’s at least a very nice complement to the headliner of this night! http://www.selectyourfighter.com/ / http://www.myspace.com/syfmusic
Music & Performance
It was early in the evening and the club just opened its doors, so SELECT YOUR FIGHTER had to begin their show in front of a pretty empty venue with only a handful of people being daring enough to show up directly in front of stage. Not the best circumstances to perform a show but the band took it with some sense of humour. Especially the drummer was pretty communicative and didn’t stop to make cheeky comments to the audience - and that everyone understood him quite well although he had no microphone available just shows how empty it really was at this point!
It’s a shame that not more people had the opportunity to see SELECT YOUR FIGHTER performing, as they were pretty convincing musically. Pretty rhythmic, nice aggressive guitar attacks, howling vocals, and an excellent lesson in how to use a keyboard as a Rock ’n’ Roll instrument - ignore the knobs and simply bang on it like a maniac! *g* The right sound for a packed sticky club - so I put seeing SELECT YOUR FIGHTER in such a place instead of an empty medium-sized venue with a few uncaring visitors on my to-do list. Anyway, thumbs up!
Rating
Music: 7
Performance: 8
Sound: 8
Light: 5
Total: 7.6
My Uncle the Wolf
MY UNCLE THE WOLF produce a heavy (New) Metal sound which will please any fan of bands like Eyehategod, Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, Crowbar and, in particular, Down. MY UNCLE THE WOLF often sounds rather like a band from the southern US states than a band from Brooklyn, New York. But although one could claim that their style somewhere between Doom, Stoner Rock and “New” Metal is a bit retro their hard-hitting riffs comprise fresh vibes which will excite anyone who loves the groovier and doomier side of Metal. Founded in 2005, MY UNCLE THE WOLF made their way from an unknown band releasing demos to a band which is signed to Cargo Records, produced by the “Godfather of Southern Rock” Jimmy Bower and touring Europe with Industrial Metal legend MINISTRY. MY UNCLE THE WOLF is Zac Hutton (vocals), George V. (guitars), Joey Debbs (drums), and Jeff (bass). http://www.myspace.com/myunclethewolf
Music & Performance
I can’t say that I’d be the biggest expert or even fan of this kind of music but the qualities of MY UNCLE THE WOLF are obvious. In a live context their heavy sound displays its full power, and even though the band might still have to find their very own sound this doesn’t matter too much at a live show. MY UNCLE THE WOLF unfortunately received just a polite but somehow lacklustre feedback from the audience, as their music is perhaps not the best match for the sound of the headliner of the night.
Rating
Music: 6
Performance: 7
Sound: 8
Light: 6
Total: 7.2
Ministry
MINISTRY are in the year 2008 Tommy Victor, Tony Campos, Aaron Rossi, John Bechdel, Sin Quirin and, of course, mastermind Al Jourgensen. Over the years, band founder Al Jourgensen transformed MINISTRY from a pretty poppy synth band in the early '80s to a musical Metal monster which uses a lot of modern sampler and synthesizer technology to produce aggressive guitar riff attacks. In other words, MINISTRY embarked on a mission to invent a whole new genre - Industrial Metal! After a series of albums which marked this evolution - and granted simultaneously a growing success - the album ‘Psalm 69’ went Platinum in 1992, featuring the hits ‘N.W.O.’, ‘Just One Fix’ and ‘Jesus Built My Hotrod’. The second half of the 1990s were a phase of disorientation for MINISTRY, with some half-baked albums and band members coming and going - but Ministry came back strong in the new millennium, with a new favourite enemy and major subject in their lyrics - George W. Bush and the current US government! The album ‘Houses of the Mole’ (2004) marked what was to become a trilogy with the follow-up ‘Rio-Grande Blood’ and the most recent and very last studio release ‘The Last Sucker’. http://www.ministrymusic.org/
Music & Performance
MINISTRY came on stage to a video backdrop of REVOLTING COCKS song ‘I’m Not Gay’ and soon went into ‘Lets Go’, the first track from 2007’s ‘Last Sucker’. ‘Let’s Go’ is a pacy song and the small pit at the front soon started to move. From then on it was more of the same from Ministry and a little disappointing that a few more diverse tracks didn’t make it in the set-list, though ‘No W’ certainly raised the tempo again - Jourgensen is at this point shouting and spitting constantly from his trademark mic stand. The best response the band got was during ‘LiesLiesLies’. At this point the crowd seemed a little more involved with the night and this was a perfect end before the first of two encores. A lot of people, like me, had gone to this gig in the hope that MINISTRY would play a few old songs, for old time’s sake, and MINISTRY on this part delivered.
If I had to pick a few songs to hear on their final tour, it would have to be ‘N.W.O’, ‘Just One Fix’ (both from 92’s ‘Psalm 69’), and ‘Thieves’ (from 89’s ‘The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste’). It would have been fine if the band had finished on ‘Thieves’ and I think most die-hard fans would be too. In true Al fashion, rather than end the show with another classic like ‘Psalm 69’ or ‘Stigmata’, MINISTRY's second encore featured a cover of ‘Wonderful World’.
Setlist
01. Let's Go
02. The Dick Song
03. Watch Yourself
04. Life Is Good
05. The Last Sucker
06. No W
07. Waiting
08. Worthless
09. Wrong
10. Rio Grande Blood
11. Senor Peligro
12. LiesLiesLies
13. Khyber Pass
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14. So What
15. N.W.O.
16. Just One Fix
17. Thieves
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18. Wonderful World
Rating
Music: 9
Performance: 9
Sound: 8
Light: 8
Total: 9.6
All pictures by Daniela Vorndran (http://www.vorndranphotography.com/ / http://www.black-cat-net.de/ / www.myspace.com/vorndranphotography)
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