Dillinger Escape Plan Reunite Just To Dismantle Chicago's Salt Shed

I'm not even that old and there are absolutely concerts I barely remember attending. Sure, everything from two drink minimums to late start times can contribute to the loss of those memories (or if the band is bad enough, prevented them from being formed in the first place), but a lot of it is just the inevitable march of time. Do something enough times across a long enough timeline, and naturally you're going to have trouble keeping all the memories separated, if you even keep them at all.

But there's also the flip-side to the equation: the existence of shows that you will absolutely never forget as long as you live. From the smallest corner of the darkest hole in the wall in town to the biggest arena in the state, any venue where music is being performed for an audience has the potential to be one of these shows. The problem is that these shows need time to prove themselves unforgettable. It's sometimes hard to recognize an all-timer as it's happening.

As lead singer Dmitri Minakakis and the rest of The Dillinger Escape Plan raged through the last bars of an absolutely brutal rendition of '43% Burnt', only to throw it back to the song's breakdown again as a reward to the massive pit that opened in the middle of the Salt Shed's floor, the energy definitely had the feel of one of those shows.

And why wouldn't it? The fact that TDEP was playing in the first place was a certified Big Deal. Prior to this year, no version of the band has taken the stage since their legendary 3 night run at Brooklyn's Terminal 5 in 2017, and Minakakis hasn't performed with the band since the Calculating Infinity Tour wrapped in early 2001.

Enter the lure of the anniversary show.

Tours "celebrating the XX anniversary of ______" have become extremely commonplace the last few years as bands try and find sure-fire ways to sustain themselves with the ever-increasing cost of touring. It's understandable to react to the announcements of these types of shows with a shrug and the occasional eye-roll.

That's not the case with the shows TDEP scheduled in 2024 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Calculating Infinity. An appearance at No Values Festival in June and three shows at the Brooklyn Paramount are the only US shows the band booked outside of this final Chicago show in 2024, and what happens after that is anyone's guess. The chances are just as great that the band tours behind Calculating Infinity next year after using 2024 as a warm-up as they are that this Chicago show was the final TDEP show of all time.

Anticipation was through the roof as fans waited to see Minakakis fronting the band one more time. After he left the band over 20 years ago, TDEP regrouped by bringing on singer Greg Puciato and drastically changed their sound moving forward, meaning that enough time had passed that you could have fans of Calculating that weren't even alive the last time Minakakis performed songs off the album.

In a stroke of luck during the brutal late-August heatwave you can always count on in the midwest, this show was moved from the Salt Shed's outdoor fairgrounds stage to the venue's air conditioned interior performance space. With a show whose doors opened at 3:00 and included five total acts, the punk/metal fans in attendance needed all the energy they could muster to get through the ocular assault that was awaiting them. Starting with the punk rock stylings of NO MEN, (who fans of Screaming Females would do well to check out), the expectations of how much energy and participation would be required from the rest of the audience on the night were set pretty high. Perhaps knowing that going too hard too fast would be too much, they were followed by experimental emo band The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die. And while they were also no longer afraid to get really loud, the movement in the pit and throughout the crowd was more of a massive, unified sway back and forth with occasional pockets of heavy head nodding.

The real changes in vibe and true signal that things were about to get real (real weird?) was the beginning of Secret Chiefs 3's set. Taking the stage dressed as Medieval clerics, the band (containing three of the musicians from Mr. Bungle) unleashed a combination of multi-instrumental extended jams tinged with strings and metal and more time signatures than the last Tool album. Remember the scene in This Is Spinal Tap where they talk about their long-gestating idea of doing a "jazz odyssey"? This is what I feel like the final realized form of that project would look like. It was absolutely a curveball and threw the mosh pit participants just looking to get into a groove for a curveball, but by the time the band closed out 'Brazen Serpent', the entire audience was moving and primed for more.

Speaking of audience participation, never before have I seen the line between audience and lead singer blurred more than with Trash Talk. From the opening notes of their first song on the night, it looked like singer Lee Spielman wanted to jump straight into the audience, and it only took him about a song and a half to do exactly that. Performing from the middle of the Salt Shed floor, sometimes surrounded by a literal tornado of people in a circle-pit frenzy, other times organizing a massive sit-down in order to spark up a joint, all with the end goal of causing chaos.

By the time The Dillinger Escape Plan took the stage, the audience was so rabid they were practically ready to devour the band. It would be a challenge for any band to match the sweaty aggression that was pent up and ready to explode, and it's a challenge Minakakis and the rest of the band (Ben Weinman, Liam Wilson, Billy Rymer, and James Love) were more than up to, with Weinman immediately launching his entire body and guitar into movements that would put the Tasmanian Devil to shame and Minakakis getting up close and personal with the first few rows of the audience as well.

Rather than sticking to Calculating Infinity alone and in order, the band threw a welcome curveball not only mixing up the order of the Infinity tracks but also tossing in a few classic gems from their self titled debut as well as Under the Running Board, with a brain crushing cover of Aphex Twin's 'Come To Daddy' thrown in to boot.

Regardless of which album it came from, the entire evening was a bone-crushing, eardrum beating tribute to just how much life, vitality, and immediacy the songs of early Dillinger Escape Plan still have 25 years later. Each suffocating breakdown. Each complicated drum fill. Each time signature change and jazzy interlude. The entire evening was a vehicle for every member of the band to fully put on display the high level of precision and power they can cram into every single note, and do so while whipping instruments and limbs across the stage with equal abandon.

If these select 2024 dates were indeed a warmup for a bigger tour next year, the rest of the country is in for a savage treat when this ball of jazz-driven math euphoria rolls into town. But if for whatever reason this is the last we see of The Dillinger Escape Plan, whether that's with Minakakis fronting or not, holy shit what a way to go out. I cannot imagine this band being able to top what they just did in Chicago and lord help us all if they ever figure out a way to do just that.

The Dillinger Escape Plan Setlist - The Salt Shed, Chicago 8.24.24

Destro's Secret
Sandbox Magician
The Running Board
The Mullet Burden
Calculating Infinity
Jim Fear
Sugar Coated Sour
4th Grade Dropout
Proceed With Caution
I Love Secret Agents
Abe the Cop
Weekend Sex Change
Variations on a Cocktail Dress
Monticello
Come to Daddy
Clip the Apex...Accept Instruction
43% Burnt