Godflesh Live History Notes

Note:
It is recorded from the mixing desk. Unfortunately I have got no information about the club or for which band Godflesh opened the show, what is obvious because of the short length.

Set List:

1. Streetcleaner 2 (Tape-Intro)
2. Streetcleaner
3. Mighty Trust Krusher
4. Locust Furnace
5. Like Rats
6. Avalanche Master Song
7. Veins
8. Wound
9. Weak Flesh
10. Head Dirt
11. Tiny Tears (e)
12. Christbait Rising (e)
13. Love is a Dog from Hell (e)

Note:
Unfortunately I was not mad about Godflesh at this time, otherwise I would have seen this festival. I do not know which other bands played this night, but Godflesh was headlining and played last and a full gig. It's the only gig I know with Streetcleaner 2 as intro and where they started with the songs where Paul appeared playing second guitar. The crowd was wild and they played a lot encores what is quite unusual.

Set List:

1. Love is a dog from hell
2. Like Rats
3. Christbait Rising
4. Veins
5. Avalanche Master Song
6. Tiny Tears
7. Weak Flesh
8. Streetcleaner
9. Mighty Trust Krusher
10. Locust Furnace
11. Head Dirt (e)

Note:
My first Godflesh-Live-experience, and the beginning of my addiction. They started very late after two boring support bands I don't remember. After 5 minutes of Love is a Dog from Hell, Justin's PA crashed and Ben finished the song as a bass solo with the drum machine in the background. It took 20 minutes to continue and therefore the gig finished very late. Even today (after about 20 times I saw them live) it was one of their best shows.

Paul Neville jumped on the stage for playing Streetcleaner, Mighty Trust Krusher and Locust Furnace with them. So it was in all other shows.

In November 1990 they made a little tour and I spent a few days of holidays to participate.

Set List:

1. Love is a dog from hell
2. Like Rats
3. Christbait Rising
4. Spinebender
5. Veins
6. Suction
7. Streetcleaner
8. Life is easy
9. Mighty Trust Krusher
10. Locust Furnace
11. Avalanche Master Song (e)
12. Head Dirt (e)

Note:
The show in Gent was the most successful I saw. The gig was completely sold out and the crowd was incredible wild, even two hours after the show they hammered on the ground. I was surprised they played Spinebender and Life is Easy. And really, it was the only gig ever they played Life is Easy. Beefore the show a friend of mine and myself did an interview with Justin. It is on the tape as well. By the way the show was opened by Helios Creed.

Set List:

1. Love is a dog from hell
2. Like Rats
3. Christbait Rising
4. Wound
5. Spinebender
6. Weak Flesh Mighty Trust Krusher
7. Locust Furnace
8. Head Dirt (e)

Note:
The show in Geel in the Campus room of the university was opened by two terrible Belgium metal-bands, the setlist was quite similar, except Life is Easy as I mentioned before, but they played Weak Flesh that night. The audience was stunned by the violent sound and seemed not very excited but Godflesh sold more T-shirts than ever, strange people.

Set List:

1. Love is a Dog from Hell
2. Like Rats
3. Christbait Rising
4. Dream Long Dead
5. Suction
6. Streetcleaner
7. Locust Furnace

Note:
The show in Cologne was a sole scandal. They had to play with the awful old-men-band Lurkers. When they had signed Godflesh were convinced, that Lurkers was the support band, because in England only two people would come to a Lurkers show, they are not popular any longer. The club was almost sold out and Godflesh had to support Lurkers, unbelievable but true. There was a fight between the people shouting for Lurkers to start, and the Godflesh fans. Godflesh only were allowed to play 35 minutes because they were afraid that Godflesh would blast off the brains of the people. In addition to that the club's staff treated Godflesh in an unacceptable way (no drinks, only a small room). Therefore they decided that they would never play in this club again. A popular joke was: "why nobody would like to have Godflesh as a support band? Because you would sound like a children-pop-band afterwards. "Dream Long Dead" was our request we told Justin before. He said that they hadn't played it for a long time, but they did as a sign of "thank you for your company during the tour". Even an encore was not allowed, what a mess. I'm sure you can ask them about this story because they will never forget it. When I spoke to Justin and Benny in 1995 after the show in Essen, they still laughed about this event.

Set List:

1. Love is a Dog from Hell
2. Like Rats
3. Christbait Rising
4. Veins
5. Wound
6. Streetcleaner
7. Mighty Trust Krusher
8. Locust Furnace
9. Spinebender (e)
10. Weak Flesh (e)

Almost the tour ended on this day. On their way to Liege they drove to Holland for buying some hash. Unfortunately they were checked at the border, but they were lucky, the police couldn't find anything although using dogs. I didn't see the local Belgium bands opened that night. The show was nothing special and only a small crowd.

Set List:

1. Like Rats
2. Christbait Rising
3. Wound
4. Veins
5. Spinebender
6. Avalanche Master Song
7. Weak Flesh
8. Streetcleaner
9. Mighty Trust Krusher
10. Locust Furnace
11. Ice Nerveshatter (e)
12. Pulp (e)

Note: The last show was something special. They told us before that it will be the last time playing the old Godflesh/Streetcleaner-songs. They played it for years and it was enough, Justin said. We were interested to hear the songs we hadn't heard and shouted a lot of requests. And they did: the encores were Ice Nerveshatter and an incredible noisy 20 minutes-version of Pulp (with Paul Neville), but they didn't play Love is a Dog from Hell.

One year later the next tour with Robert instead of Paul Neville. Also there was no drum machine anymore but they used a DAT-Recorder for drums and samples. I did not enjoy the tour that much. They were very limited by the DAT-machine and played the same songs in the same order almost every show, while on the last tour I had admired their flexibility. And: I did not like the Robert's style of playing guitar. It sounds really like an errant Loop-Guitar and it bothered the Godflesh sound. They sounded less noisy and less straight.

Set List:

1. Slateman
2. Slavestate
3. Meltdown
4. Someone Somewhere Scorned
5. Spite
6. Cold World
7. I Wasn't Born to Follow
8. Love is a Dog from Hell (e)

Note: As promised they did not play any songs from the albums Godflesh and Streetcleaner but the new Slavestate stuff. At this time neither Pure nor Cold World were released, therefore it was exciting to hear new songs first live (Don't bring me flowers, Spite, Cold World, I wasn't born to follow). Of course, I was happy they played my all-time-favourite "Love is a Dog from Hell" as an encore and in a special version which was much slower than the original.

Note:
See Eindhoven

Note:
See Eindhoven above

Note:
See Eindhoven above

Set List:

1. Slateman
2. Slavestate
3. Meltdown
4. Don't Bring me Flowers
5. Someone Somewhere Scorned
6. Spite
7. Cold World
8. I Wasn't Born to Follow
9. Perfect Skin
10. Love is a Dog from Hell

Note:
It was the first and last time I heard Perfect Skin live, therefore at least something special in this show.

Only four months later, there was already the next tour. Pure was released in the meantime, Cold World was not, but they did not play it on this tour, remarkable. They lost some credit again because of the disturbing guitar of Robert. This was not only my opinion.

Set List:

1. Slateman
2. Pure
3. Mothra
4. Slavestate
5. Spite
6. Predominance
7. Someone Somewhere Scorned
8. I Wasn't Born to Follow
9. Like Rats (e)
10. Love is a Dog from Hell (e)

Note:
In comparison to the last tour they added Pure, Mothra, and Predominance. And we were of course stunned to hear an old song: Like rats was first encore, also in a slow-motion version.

Note:
See Herford above

What a shame, one of two shows I was present but no tape. We did not realize that our machine was damaged. We had recorded but nothing was on the tape.

Set List:

1. Slateman
2. Pure
3. Mothra
4. Slavestate
5. Spite
6. Predominance
7. Someone Somewhere Scorned
8. Don't Bring Me Flowers
9. I Wasn't Born to Follow
10. Like Rats (e)
11. Love is a Dog from Hell (e)

Note:
One more song this night: Don't bring me flowers. The show was opened by the local band called Deinum but as usual I did not pay attention because most support bands are boring and this one was definitely.

Set List:

1. Slateman
2. Pure
3. Mothra
4. Slavestate
5. Spite
6. Predominance
7. Someone Somewhere Scorned
8. I Wasn't Born to Follow
9. Meltdown (e)
10. Like Rats (e)

Note:
Something special, they played Meltdown instead of Love is a Dog From Hell.

Set List:

1. Slateman
2. Pure
3. Mothra
4. Don't Bring me Flowers
5. Slavestate
6. Spite
7. Predominance
8. Someone Somewhere Scorned
9. I Wasn't Born to Follow
10. Like Rats (e)
11. Love is a dog from hell (e)

Note:
Again they added Don't bring me flowers in this show.

You can imagine that I was happy to see them in the Selfless-Tour as a two-man-band again. The sound was much better and it was brilliant. I enjoyed it as much as the shows in 1990. On this tour they used alongside their DAT a videomachine for additional visuals, it was great.

Set List:

1. Xynobis
2. Bigot
3. Spite
4. Mothra
5. Anything is mine
6. Pure
7. Body Dome Light
8. Slavestate
9. Toll
10. Crush my soul
11. Christbait Rising
12. Merciless (e)

Note:
The new songs they played were Xynobis, Bigot, Anything is mine, Body Dome Light, Toll and Crush my soul. And again they were able to make a sensational slow motion version of an old song, on this tour it was Christbait Rising, one of my favourites, incredible. The encore was Merciless, the Merciless 12" was just released. We were amazed when they told us after the show that the songs on Merciless are very old stuff in reality. The show was opened by the German noise band Think about Mutation. I do not like them but I remember very well because they opened almost every noise show in Germany at this time, e.g. a few days later I saw them again as opener for The Jesus Lizard.

Note:
See Essen above

Note:
See Essen above

Unfortunately, always the same set. They told us they could play one more song Black Boned Angel, but they never did a second encore, that was a pity. On the tape is the record of a Dutch radio session including an interview with Godflesh and Xynobis. This session took place in Amsterdam, either on 24th or 25th February 1995.

In 1996 they supported Ministry on their German/Netherlands-Tour, and I only could see them once. There were several reasons for it: I got no chance to go backstage and to talk to them, because of the Ministry security rules; therefore no chance to be part on the guest lists for another show. On the other hand, because of Ministry the shows were very expensive and I don't like Ministry particularly. I would have almost missed them completely, because nobody knew that Godflesh was supporting act. It was neither on the placards nor announced somewhere else. Luckily I had got the information by internet. Even when I entered the club I did not know for sure whether it's true. Also the cashier had no clue. I paid and was very very happy to discover the Godflesh table with CDs and T-shirts inside. No tape unfortunately because my friend was very ill at this time.

Set List:

1. Blind
2. Wake
3. Dream Long Dead
4. Bigot
5. Circle of shit
6. Angel Domain
7. Weak Flesh

Note:
The set was amazing, a wild mix of old and new songs. I had never heard Blind before and it was great to hear new versions of old songs like Dream Long Dead and Weak Flesh. Songs of Love and Hate was not released at this time, therefore it was the first time ever I heard the songs Wake, Circle of shit and Angel Domain. Of course, I was not very happy with the role of the band. They only played 35 minutes and were not loud enough. I had got the impression that Ministry wanted this effect for themselves, because their show was definitely too loud.

Luckily, there was an Open-air festival in Belgium without Ministry but with Godflesh. I can hardly remember the other bands (again because I did not like them) except 59 Times the pain and Unsane (I love Unsane, therefore it was worth to travel to Belgium to see both bands in one show.)

Set List:

1. Blind
2. Wake
3. Spite
4. Dream Long Dead
5. Bigot
6. Circle of shit
7. Angel Domain
8. Crush my soul
9. Weak Flesh

Note:
They added Spite (also in a different version) and Crush my soul and played 50 minutes.

There some other dates of shows in Germany I know although I was not present because of the distances:

Date:	19.06.96
Location:	Berlin (Germany)
Venue:	Arena

Date:	22.06.96
Location:	Hamburg (Germany)
Venue:	Gaswerk

Date:	25.06.96
Location:	Stuttgart (Germany)
Venue:	Congress Centre

Date:	26.06.96
Location:	Offenbach (Germany)
Venue:	Stadthalle

Date:	11.07.96
Location:	Nurnberg/Furth (Germany)
Venue:	Stadthalle

Date:	31.03.92
Location:	Berlin (Germany)
Venue:	Neue Welt

Date:	02.04.92
Location:	Frankfurt (Germany)
Venue:	Negativ

Date:	03.04.92
Location:	Gammelsdorf (Germany)
Venue:	Circus

Date:	05.04.92
Location:	Stuttgart (Germany)
Venue:	Maxim Gorky

Date:	31.03.92
Location:	Berlin (Germany)
Venue:	Neue Welt

Date:	30.01.95
Location:	Hamburg (Germany)
Venue:	Marx

Date:	02.02.95
Location:	Berlin (Germany)
Venue:	Loft

Date:	03.02.95
Location:	Chemnitz (Germany)
Venue:	AJZ Talschock

Date:	04.02.95
Location:	Leipzig (Germany)
Venue:	Conny Island

Date:	05.02.95
Location:	Munich (Germany)
Venue:	Strom

Note:
All shows in Germany (in 1995 only?) were opened by Think about Mutation. I am sure you know the other venues they played on this tour because it is printed on the T-shirt, don't you? In other case, notify me, I can tell them to you as well.

That all I have to say for the moment, but it is already quite a lot, I think. Sorry about the mistakes, but English really is not my mother language. I hope you enjoyed the information and the little stories I experienced.