Ministry (w/ Alien Weaponry) @ Rebel (Toronto, ON) on December 2, 2018 [Photos & Show Review]

For the second time in 2018, the mighty Ministry rolled through Toronto touring their 2018 AmeriKKKant album. This time around, the band hit the Rebel stage and performed the entire AmeriKKKant album accompanied with an impressive video presentation for each of the songs. Making its debut on this tour is band mastermind Al Jourgensen’s new mic stand (created by Sawbladehead Designs) shaped like a cross and designed to support Jourgensen’s three microphones, a computer, and his other requisite musical accouterments.

When the band walked offstage after performing AmeriKKKant, there was an air of discomfort in the venue given the group had just left the stage after performing nothing older than this calendar year. As they all retook the stage, Jourgensen apologized for the break between their sets professing that they were old. He then mentioned that their album The Land of Rape and Honey is celebrating thirty years and laughed before stating that he remembers very little of what happened after that album’s release.

Al Jourgensen, Sin Quirin, Tony Campos, Cesar Soto, John Bechdel, and Derek Abrams then worked their way through “The Land of Rape and Honey,” “The Missing,” “Deity,” and Stigmata” from that seminal 1988 Ministry release to a euphoric Toronto crowd before wrapping the evening off with “Just One Fix,” “N.W.O.,” “Thieves,” and “So What.”

Enter the “Twilight Zone” with Ministry’s latest music video.

The show was outstanding, a real audio-visual example of before/after Ministry material, given that they skipped material from every album between Psalm 69 and AmeriKKKant on this evening. Kudos to the band for not rolling through town and playing the same live set they delivered in April at the Opera House. As much as I’d have loved to have heard more, the simple fact is that Ministry would have to play a four hour set to capture their wealth of great material, and that is entirely unrealistic.

Regarding Carpenter Brut, I wasn’t even allowed into the venue to see them perform because I had a photo pass. Read into that what you will. I would have loved to have seen them play.

Opening this current Ministry tour, and performing their first Canadian show this evening, was Alien Weaponry. A New Zealand trio of teenagers, the band blew the minds of everyone in the venue early as they worked their way through a half hour of punishingly heavy material from their 2018 debut album Tū. Any reservations audience members might have had as three youngsters strode upon the stage to pre-recorded traditional Māori haka war-dance chanting were quickly put to bed as the band kicked into the rhythm and guitar parts of “Rü Ana Te Whenua” and melted everyone’s faces off.

They’ll draw comparisons to Max and Igor Cavalera, both in sound and in the way the brothers embrace their Brazilian roots in their music. Lewis de Jong, Henry de Jong, and Ethan Trembath are proud descendants of the Ngati Pikiāo, and Ngati Raukawa tribes in New Zealand, a culture with a penchant for brutal war-dancing; Alien Weaponry went over like kiwi Sepultura, and more than a few necks were bending along with the band five minutes into their performance.

Ministry’s Toronto Setlist:

01. I Know Words (audio)
02. Twilight Zone
03. Victims of a Clown
04. TV5/4Chan (audio)
05. We’re Tired of It
06. Wargasm
07. Antifa
08. Game Over
09. AmeriKKKa
10. The Land of Rape and Honey
11. The Missing
12. Deity
13. Stigmata
14. Just One Fix
15. N.W.O.
16. Thieves
17. So What