Fireball Ministry Rock Viper Room

Review by Lisa Burke, photos by Matt Nielson

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June 26th 2015, The Viper Room, West Hollywood CA: Longstanding Los Angeles-based stoner rock outfit Fireball Ministry made a rare live appearance at an excellently attended Viper Room headine gig last Friday, along with instrumental doom trio Ironaut as the opening act. Our writer Lisa Burke and photographer Matt Nielson were in attendance. Check out Lisa’s review of the show along with Matt’s photos:

Last Friday night, I ventured out to the Viper Room to see Fireball Ministry. I haven’t seen the Viper Room that packed in a long time. They definitely have a group of diehard fans and clearly, this band gets missed when they aren’t out playing shows. I haven’t seen them in many years and it was comforting to see them again. The vocals were strong and particularly great when harmonized by Emily Burton, the band’s solitary female member. She brings the unique qualities to this quartet and really rocks the fuck out of the guitar while still keeping on par with the long-haired bearded vibe going on around her. Guitarist/vocalist James Rota personally reminds me of a stoned Lemmy. In fact, Fireball Ministry is like a doomier, stonier version of Motörhead to me, and I like that. All in all, if you’re expecting something Slayer-esque, don’t see this band, but you should totally see this band because they rock, and really have a classic approach to metal that stands out in all its technicalities.

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After Fireball Ministry’s set was an all-girl KISS coverband called Priss. I have to say there was nothing prissy about them. They had an attempt of the KISS makeup and outfits going on but without KISS’ budget, how can you truly compete? That said, the bass player had the strongest KISS vibe going on in her makeup, hair, attitude, and technical skills. The best part, however, was that she must have totally borrowed Gene Simmons’ tongue for the show because that thing was special and she rocked it well. Now I know there’s at least a handfull of KISS cover bands out there including one with midgets that I should probably go see, and I’m not 100 per cent sure they were even playing KISS songs some of the time but they had a super cute and fun vibe going on and technically they had some sparks happening with occasional flame thrower moments. I recommend checking these chicks out.

I arrived just in time for Fireball Ministry so I can’t comment on the two openers but I will mention that I’ve heard through the grapevine that Ironaut is worth checking out if you’re into the doom and gloom. It’s a technically driven band and they carry that out well from what i understand.

One last note before the fat lady sings is that the turnaround time for bands at Viper needs to be a little less. Between Fireball Ministry and Priss I could have gone back to east Hollywood, joined Scientology, watched another band and came back with 5 minutes to spare. I’m not going to throw blame on any one party here because I’m not in a band and i don’t know what it really takes to make it happen at this venue, but perhaps a stronger sound system is in order. Your professional musician opinion is welcome on this.

Set List:
01. Flatline
02. He Who Kills
03. Choker
04. Death Dealer
05. Two Tears
06. Daughter Of The Damned
07. Rollin’ On
08. Spill The Demons
09. The Broken
10. Sundown
11. Trick of the Light (The Who cover)
12. King

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