Saturday night, The Salt Shed was filled to capacity for the tag team of Ministry and Acid Bath. That’s two super heavyweights, one of which are hometown heroes. The line went down the street before the gates opened full of excited fans. Originally this was scheduled to be an outdoor show at the Shed but they ended up moving it indoors instead.
First up was Windhand. Hailing from VA, this band played stoner rock/doom metal and had a female singer. They had this really great, loud, crunchy guitar sound that just knocked you on your ass and was so heavy. On top of that, great drumming and the lead singer’s singing really worked well with the thick wall of sound she had to sing over. I’m all for more female singers in this style of bands, it is fantastic. They played four songs which spanned a half hour and they were awesome.
Acid Bath reunited recently and had toured to big sellout crowds everywhere they went, so it was no secret that the over 4,000 fans in attendance this night were super excited for them. I think the key to success is be in a really great band and then break up for 20 years so people miss you and the legend of your band keeps growing, then come back and play huge shows. Acid Bath deserve to play to as many people as possible, they are among the cream of the crop in their genre, which is more on the sludge metal side, which they were among the pioneers of. It’s great to have them back. Dax’s voice was in fine form and the entire band just put on a sludge/doom clinic to the delight of the entire audience. They opened with “Tranquilized” from their legendary When The Kite String Pops album and they sounded amazing and then they went on to play the entire rest of that album! What a treat that was! People went nuts for it, there was a big pit in the middle of the room, and other people were banging their heads and rocking out to the entire set. That alone gave the people their money’s worth and Ministry was still to follow!
Ministry was the final act of the evening and people were pumped. Their set started with the guy who was the cover model for the Filth Pig came out to introduce the band and he was in the exact same getup he was in on the album cover! It literally was seeing an album cover come to life on stage and having it introduce one of Chicago’s favorite bands. The band members all filed out after that and then they started the set with “Reload” which is the opening track on Filth Pig. The guitars were super heavy and the entire band sounded incredibly powerful. The sound in the venue for them was also spot on. Al was very animated on stage, pacing back and forth, gesturing to the crowd, and he even threw a guitar to his tech who barely caught it, averting disaster!
The band did a set heavy on the Filth Pig material. The additional songs they played from it were “Crumbs”, “Dead Guy”, “Useless” (which featured a guest appearance by none other than Paul Barker, who sang it!), “Lava”, and the title track. That was most of the album and most of that night’s set. They threw in another gem by playing “Scarecrow” for the first time in around 30 years and that is a personal favorite of mine so it was pretty special!
The band also played two new songs for the first time ever that will be on their forthcoming, final studio album. Both songs were well up to the recent Ministry standards, and it sounds like the band will be going out strong based on the two songs performed here. They closed out the evening with a pair of old favorites, “N.W.O”, which was the heaviest and most powerful rendition I’ve heard them do yet, and “Just One Fix”. All in, the set was just over an hour, and it was a fun ride from start to finish. The Filth Pig material seemed to have aged well, and that album appears to have found a new audience, or an audience that was willing to revisit it who likely dismissed much of it when it was first released 30 years ago.
Having Ministry return to their hometown is always a special occasion, and the fact they weren’t on a proper tour this year but made this appearance made it that much better. Having Ministry team up to share a bill with Acid Bath was really smart booking as the two acts really complimented each other nicely! What a great evening!
