Same old. Nothing spectacular.
We did get the ‘Montreal: best crowd of the tour so far’ from Al.
I actually felt bad for some of the people around me, who obviously had no idea what they were in store for.
When Al came out and said that he was going to play some ‘old ones’ I heard people yelling: ‘TV SONG!!! BREATHE!!! FLASHBACK!!!’
Silly people.
They played the silly Wicked Lake trailer on their video screen right before “I’m Not Gay” came on. First time I’ve seen a commercial break at a live concert! Have they been doing that at every show? I hadn’t seen it mentioned here. The crowed cheered for it, but I don’t know if it was because they liked the girls’ bums, or because they knew it was almost time for Ministry.
I thought the show was a spectacle. It’s like Skinny Puppy in being a total visual overload so I don’t know whether to look at the videos or the performers, and I’m always moving my focus around and missing stuff. They also had bright lights set up on the stage like the headlights of a car chasing Al, and did a lot of strobe light effects. Al’s glasses made his eyes glow like a cat’s in various colours, very cool. I was a little surprised when he grabbed the fence, since I was expecting them to not touch it at all. The music sounded very good, not too loud like the MasterBaTour. I could hear all of the words to the songs, but the between-song banter was often too distorted, probably because Al wasn’t using the mic properly. My favourite part of the show was actually the part from The Last Sucker. All of the new songs sounded great, and sort of reworked from their studio versions, which I always like. “Life Is Good” was totally a new “remix,” it was not as “Khyber Pass”-sounding as the studio version. Cool. I went down into the pit for “The Last Sucker”, which was fun, but I went back up to the balcony at some point during Houses of the Molé so my girlfriend wouldn’t have to watch the show alone. I was losing excitement by the conclusion of Rio Grande Blood (they played the trilogy in a TLS, HotM, RGB order), so I’d say they picked the right time to change over to encores. Tommy (who Al calls “TV”) dangled his guitar over the fence like he was going to give it away to one of the fans, but he was just kidding. [laugh]
Were the people around you disappointed with the setlist? I don’t think it’s a big deal if they play “So What” instead of “Breathe”, or “N.W.O.” instead of “TV Song,” it’s all the same era of Ministry. There was some unintentional noise during “N.W.O,” but they got it under control. The encores and lead singers were:
So What (Al)
N.W.O. (Burton)
Just One Fix (Burton)
Thieves (Al)
Roadhouse Blues (Al, I think…?)
Just Got Paid (Burton)
Under My Thumb (Burton)
I wasn’t too impressed with Burton’s contributions. It seemed like he was trying to sound as much like Al’s original versions as possible, rather than add something new to the songs, which kind of defeats the purpose of a guest singer.
There was a VIP Meet & Greet after the show, sort of, but Al didn’t go to it. That’s his right, since he never promised to and I wasn’t expecting a meet & greet of any kind in Montreal. I didn’t really have anything to say to Burton/Tommy/Tony/whoever, so we just left after it was clear Al wasn’t coming.
I’m glad I went to the show. I’d catch the next Ministry show and reccommend it to everyone, hypothetically if they still existed after this.
Even if burton was trying so hard to sound like Al (which I disagree with), he and Al sound completely different from one another so that’s impossible. Not sure what I think of Burton’s vocals on these songs, but it’s at least something a little “different”, but that’s not saying much with ministry these days.