Bloody hell that was LOUD!

I was afraid my ears would literally start bleeding at a Ministry show I went to several years ago. Thankfully, my ears were plugged last night and I was able to appreciate MBV's sonic assault at a comfortable volume. The band played nearly all of Loveless except "Loomer" and "Sometimes". They played every track on Isn't Anything except "Soft As Snow," "No More Sorry," and "Sueisfine." They didn't play "Lose My Breath" because I would have remembered it if they had. I'm sure that those who snagged a setlist at the end of the show will post them somewhere soon.

Impressions: awful venue, inexplicable security policies, guy wheel-chaired away after he collapses next to the speakers at the first note the band played, clean-smelling friendly people in the crowd, Kevin Shields' hand, Shields and Butcher changing guitars more frequently than Bowie changed costumes as Ziggy in the Spiders From Mars, Bilinda Butcher playing what looked like a sweet, turquoise Fender Mustang at one point, drowned out vocals, my body vibrating like a cell phone, the audience's cheers sounding eerily like the shrieks of damned souls as the feedback faded out on the last number, Shield's saying, "Hiya, thank you for coming out tonight," ear plugs, no encore

What the last twenty minutes of the show felt/sounded like:
-standing on a tarmac while half a dozen Boeing Jets simultaneously take off
-speeding through the Lincoln Tunnel toward Jersey with the top down (amplified to 11 a la Spinal Tap)
-listening to 1,000 percussive instruments being played at the same time at different tempos
-listening to a dozen sets of helicopter propellers going at once
-being suspended in the center of a tornado
-the Rapture as I imagine it (just before your ass is left behind!)
-fucking cool

Head over to the SF Weekly Blog for a write-up of the show by Jennifer Maerz.

"the sound was like a rocket launch where the spaceship never leaves the vicinity, instead breaking one sound barrier after another ten feet away from you."

(Update) Setlist via alternapop.com:

I Only Said
When You Sleep
You Never Should
(When You Wake) You're Still In A Dream
Cigarette In Your Bed
Come In Alone
Only Shallow
Thorn
Nothing Much To Lose
To Here Knows When
Slow
Feed Me With Your Kiss
You Made Me Realise