For some reason they all involve destruction. Ministry at Lollapalooza 2 in Dallas. They refused to go on until it was dark, which meant a 2-hour delay between Pearl Jam and them. The natives were getting restless. Bonfires were breaking out all over the grass. Some of the skaters discovered that if you get a whole bunch of people on a blanket you can launch people into the air. Some of the preppies also discovered this by getting on the skaters' blankets, at which point the skaters launched them into the air to land... not on the blankets. There were ambulances and police. Then Ministry came on stage and, with Gibby Haynes instead of Paul Barker, launched into an incredble, post-apocalyptic vision of Just One Fix. Crash Worship, ADRV tour. Mixed that. We had to cover the entire club in visqueen because they sprayed the audience with flour, wine, honey, bodily fluids, gawd knows what. There has never been a Crash Worship show that wasn't stopped by the cops. Tchkung! opened for them; that was the first and last time we've had fully-automatic AK-47s loaded with blanks in the club. They sprayed the audience with burning fake dollar bills with George Bush's face on them. Jane's Addiction & Chainsaw Kitten at the Albuquerque convention center. Three Days was s 25-minute solo and halfway through, someone ripped a fire extinguisher off the wall and sprayed down the audience. We thought we were being gassed. Front 242, 1998. Ran lights for. JL Demeyer had the audience bouncing so much the racks were swaying side-to-side a good foot. I had to hold them up to keep them from crashing onto Patric C, who was mixing. We were fully convinced they were going to collapse the floor; it was membraning a good 6" up and down. Queensryche, the Empire tour. First and last time Queensryche did Operation:Mindcrime in its entirety. We'd sort of moved on to other things by then but hot damn, those guys knew how to play. And sing. Geoff Tate remains an insurmountable wall of talent. White Zombie, Pantera and Drown, again at the Albuquerque Convention Center. Simply because I've never seen that much violence at a show before or since. I did have a fuckin' killer mix for Razed in Black. They were touring with Switchblade Symphony, who were bitchez. So I mixed the fuck out of Razed in Black. Almost got their energy up with the Front 242 show. Then F'ing Switchblade came on stage with a lame-ass coked-out rendition of Dissolve and the room emptied. It was awesome. So many stories. At least I can't say I wasted my youth.
Two years ago now (I think) I caught a simply breathtaking performance by Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3. I thought I was going to see a nostolgia piece by a quirky, talented performer who hopefully still had some chops left. What I got was one of the best shows of my life. Hitchcock sang and played guitar, and delivered every song with not only the skill, but the absolute light as air effortlessness of a veteran who only knows one thing. I hadn't bothered to even look up his band, but was pleasantly surprised to see Peter Buck on stage as a member. That was my first clue that I might be in for more than I expected. In short order, I was blown away by each musician in turn, playing mostly songs I was not familiar with (Hitchcock's catalog is enormous, and I never acquainted myself with his work with this band in particular). I was just shaking my head at the guitar work, the bass, the melodies, the melodies RH was playing while singing so perfectly.
About halfway through the set they started playing a beautiful ballad called New York Doll that Hitchcock wrote after seeing the documentary by the same name about Arthur Kane, the band's bassist. As the drummer switched over to brushes and started playing along, I was just fucking floored by how tasteful and quiet and perfect it was. I was blown away by what he wasn't doing just as much as what he was. I had never done this before in my life, by I had to pull out my phone mid song and find out who this drummer was, - I was that moved by how understated and beautiful his playing was. The drummer for Ministry you saw on stage in 1992? Yeah. Same guy. To discover that fact against the backdrop of that beautiful, serene moment...was pretty cool. He's definitely married to his craft, first and foremost.
Little story about Bill. Bill went to Roosevelt High, same as half the awesome people in the entertainment industry#Notable_alumni), same as a lot of my friends. As such, he's a known quantity. Or, at least he is, if you know who he is. He's a decidedly unassuming man. One of the first shows I worked for money was the Swans' Soundtracks for the Blind farewell tour - they called it quits for 13 years after that because Michael Gira and Jarboe couldn't stand each other. And I've got the monitors dialed up and I'm checking my lights while they're doing a good'n'proper Swans-ey dirge and this dude in a black sport coat and wool scarf, probably in his 50s, walks in. He stands next to me and proceeds to strip-tease. Mike Gira cracks up, the song stops, and he says "you asshole." Then he gets into the mic and says "Bill Rieflin, ladies and gentlemen." I turn to him and say "You're Bill Rieflin?" He says "Most days." "I drove four thousand miles to see you play with Ministry twice." "I'm sorry." "No, you guys were awesome! It was fuckin' rad." "Those pricks still owe me money." * * * There are a lot of nice people in music, industrial/goth included. Bill Rieflin is definitely one of them. When he started touring with REM everyone in town went UP-GRADE!