Ministry, Gary Numan, and Frontline Assembly Bring Their Sonic Assault to Royal Oak

Mar 13

Written By Mikel Pfeiffer/Digital Racket

In front of a sold out crowd at Royal Oak Music Theatre, Ministry, along with Gary Numan and Frontline Assembly, brought their best for a night of industrial metal mayhem. The entire night was a made up of bands most the crowd would have paid separately to see. Frontline Assembly started the show at 7pm sharp, which is a warning for upcoming dates to get their early if you want to catch them. And you will want to catch them. Backed by a scene of fog and strobes, their set consisted of some of their classics like "Plasticity" and "Mindphaser". Gary Numan, a legend in his own right, followed with a set of his powerful tracks from the past few years and a couple classic like "Metal," and, of course, "Cars." Gary brought an energy and electricity to the stage which the growing crowd couldn't get enough of.

When Ministry took the stage, the crowd scene was chaos, it was difficult to even find a place to stand. Ministry opened their set with new tracks from their latest album "HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES". In some cases this could spell disaster for a crowd just looking for hits, however, Ministry's new material, as many have found out, is some of their best music in years. Songs like "BDE" and "Goddamn White Trash" hit like a punch in the gut yet leave you with an odd smile. Al still has ferocity and his band has chops to spare. After five new songs, Ministry kicked it into high gear for classics like "Just One Fix," "Thieves," "NWO" and more. They wrapped up the show with two post punk classic's, Magazine's "The Light Pours Out of Me" and their menacing version of Fad Gadget's "Ricky's Hand."

Ministry