Last night, I caught the tail end of A Queer Ritual, a two-day festival highlighting local and national queer heavy bands that was held in the basement of a warehouse/art space building in an industrial pocket of Minneapolis. This show came to my attention because of its two national headliners, Ragana and Couch Slut. I assumed that these two bands would be split across the two days of the festival, but when the daily lineups were announced, both were billed on Saturday night. With two bands I was interested in seeing at a venue I'd never visited before, plus the interesting niche of a queer-focused lineup and audience, I figured I had to check it out. 

I only caught the final four bands of the 11(!) band lineup on Saturday (Ragana, Couch Slut, Fallingwithscissors, and Godot), nor did I stick around for the afterparty that was announced near the end of the lineup, but that was enough for me to develop an overall opinion on the event: Cool bands, a very welcoming vibe, and a pretty lousy venue. The sound was fine to good - Ragana especially sounded great - but the sightlines in the room were awful. This is what my typical view of the event looked like:

The black hat at the right of the crowd in the photo above is one of the performers, So as you can see, unless you were right up front, you were pretty much out of luck at actually seeing the bands. I actually watched most of the show from the side of the stage along the back wall, which led to views like this:

That (significant) complaint aside, I would absolutely call A Queer Ritual an amazing event. The crowd was small, perhaps 200, but you could tell that everyone felt very safe and welcome. Most of the bands I saw commented on how awesome it was to see so many queer and trans people in one space. Many people took the excuse to dress flamboyantly, and there were many obvious couples cuddling on sofas or embracing in the crowd. It was quite lovely. Hopefully, A Queer Ritual can continue - this isn't the first event for the brand, and I assume it won't be the last. I'd love to be able to actually see the bands next time, though.