RevCo, Ministry and, dammit, PIG!

Just got back from RevCo & Ministry show at the Palladium. RevCo sounded really really good, the sound was good, they played well, the new singer was good, and described by Luc Van Acker as "He's sexy, He's Canadian, He's Josh Bradford". The opening-opening band was Pitbull Daycare, and I think it was generally accepted that we could have done without them.

The best part about Pitbull Daycare was that I showed my wife a fun game with the brass railing we we sitting under. If you leaned your forehead against it with a lot of pressure, the programmed bass drum made your whole head shake through the rail. As you'd expect no one really moved around much or got that into it for them.

The Cocks came out and basically went bam bam bam through all their classics, starting with Beers, Steers and Queers, Stainless Steel Providers stood out, ended with Do Ya think I'm Sexy and Physical after some new stuff and more older stuff. The sound was a lot better for them than for PB/DC (with logo cleverly ripped from AC/DC), so I thought it was a sign that things could only get better. I was right up front and everyone was pretty into RevCo.

Ministry came out and the sound from the get go was awful. It was just a wall of noise and everything just ran togeter. I've read that their sound kind of goes either way, either they put on a really tight show or sound like clangy mess. This is not to say I didn't enjoy it. I was right up front and center, people were really active, although there were several stupidities, both by the venue and the crowd, which I'll list. But a lot of people in the crowd had a lot of shit you don't want to carry around, so there was a lot of like "everyone stop dancing and look at the floor for whatever phone/glasses/rolex I just dropped and which is already doubtless stomped into a fine dust".

The only songs I could really pick out of Ministry's were the ones everyone knows really well, the middle of the set was NWO, Theives, Just one Fix. No W was right there front and center, and some girl in the audience had brought in a W cardboard standup, which Al wanted really bad, but which got shredded to bits in the 7 foot journey from owner to stage.

The encores were So What/Stigmata, then Psalm 69 for the second.

Sometime during Stigmata someone took my ponytail and placed it gently on my shoulder. Turns out it was this really small (But Fucking Pit-Crazy) girl who said it got caught in her lip ring(s), holy fuck I'm glad I didn't jump right then and really hurt her. She was a toughie, but that would suck.

Very few true assholes in the pits, one dick that literally just would run and throw himself as high up on the people in front of him, not in an effort to get passed up, but just in an effort to see how many people he could knock down. It wasn't "he was dancing and got flung around cause it's, well, a pit", it was "run as fast as I can and fling myself into people who aren't even a little expecting it". He is my prime candidate for the dickhead who grabbed me in a chokehold from behind and dragged me to the floor. At first I thought it was someone being passed up so I put my shoulder up and reached back to pass em up, but it was just an arm around my throat, pulling. Fucking nice.

Things the venue did alright:

• Didn't overcharge that much for beers. $5 Sam is acceptable, the $9 Sams I was drinking last week at Modern were not.
• Handed out cases and cases of water to us in the pit, which was really great. Places started doing that not that long ago, and I really like that.

Things the venue did that sucked:

• No photos, I guess that's average, but they were awful strict even against people stupid enough to take a camera phone into the pit just to try to get a picture
• BOTTLED beer allowed in the pit. Never a good idea. It was definitely allowed, because we were standing right in front of security and these morons were pounding Bud Lite's. Then tossing the bottles at their feet. That's not gonna get anyone killed...
• No Smoking, anywhere, ever. 1000+ people, in a bar, for 6 hours, no cigarettes. Between each band I'd go see if they were letting people out and back in yet. They didn't have a clear policy on this, I even asked security on the way in. Every time the answer was "Not sure, you should come back like in a half hour, sometimes we let people go out, sometimes not". There were like 9 staff a the front door, minimum, plenty to check stubs and wristbands on the way back in. I think they definitely spent more time telling people they couldn't smoke than they would have spent checking ticket stubs. I very nearly went out, smoked, then bought another ticket at $35 from the box office just out of spite. Fuckers.

All in all, I'm really glad we went. The sound for Ministry could have been better, but the crowd couldn't have, everyone was moving around and generally having a good time/not being dicks. The pits were really violent/friendly, people helped people up etc. Not like at a couple shows I've been to recently where it seemed like if someone fell down, people just left them for dead. Definitely better than the other Old Timers of Midwest Industrial show we went to recently, TKK, which was a lot less active, and drew a way smaller crowd. They never got minimum density of people to start dancing at that one so we just all kind of stood around waiting for Groovie Mann to fall off the stage.

PIG DAMMIT

Found a flyer at this show for a Pig show on Sunday, like 20 minutes from my house. I'll be on my way to Lovely Windsor-at-least-we're-not-Detroit Ontario. I saw Pig open for KMFDM in like '98 or '99 or so (perfect show) and it was the best Watts-heavy experience. I'm really bummed to miss this.

They have music in Detroit, right? RIGHT?