Hell Froze Over In Pasadena California This Weekend As Industrial Metal Legends Ministry Returned To Their Synth Pop Past For One Set At The Rose Bowl

May 13, 2024 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

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By James Currie

This past weekend, fans of Ministry witnessed something they never thought possible. Al Jourgensen not only acknowledging his past synth pop era but played it live! That’s right, Ministry played songs from “With Sympathy” and “Twitch” era. Yes, those songs from the mid 80’s and the fans loved it!

Cruel World festival took place Saturday at Brookside Park in the Rose Bowl. The place we’re I’ve flea market shopped with Al Jourgensen in search of his next great pair of sunglasses while sucking down cold beers on a hot summer day. We talked with his Native American friends selling wears and preaching the truth about American culture and the catalogue of sports and business imagery in the US vs the human rights of America’s First Nations people. But this time in the great venue around was quite different.

In past interviews with Jourgensen, he’s admittedly declined to even talk about his early years in music. “That early music wasn’t us, it wasn’t me.” He said, “We sold out before we ever began.” Continuing with, “Those songs were basically fed to us. The powers that be put us in a studio that we weren’t in control of and said do this.” Back then, for those who might not remember, Jourgensen’s look match that sound as he was more, in touch with his feminine side, sporting makeup, pink chino jump suits and hair as high as the heavens. The songs, reflected the times as British Synth Pop was more in vogue as Industrial music was still in its infancy and not yet part of Ministry’s répertorier. Jourgensen hated that album so much he even claimed to have destroyed the master tapes, setting them on fire, so they could never live again.

For years, nei, decades, Al Jourgensen has shunned that first album, “With Sympathy” and all it represented. But on Saturday, that all changed. Ministry dove head first into ONLY those songs from that album and era. Industrial music super giants Ministry, became 80’s synth pop lore Ministry playing 9 tracks from that “dark time” as Jourgensen once put it. This started to creep into Ministry’s set’s just before the world shut down from Covid. In 2019, the band started playing a reworked version “(Everyday Is) Halloween”. But this time around, dove head first into the 80’s glory.

To put it in another perspective, Jourgensen has put down his first major record label deal so much, he refused to sign it. If a fan asked, he’d push it back and say, “No”. But at an event in Chicago a couple years back, Jourgensen was signing a book someone wrote about him and the band (Prescripture, Melodic Virtue, 2019). A fan one walked in with a copy of “With Sympathy” and $1000 and Jourgensen signed it. Fulfilling an offer he said would be the only way he’d sign that album. Marking this, the first time personalizing it for a fan since those early days.

For fans of the band since the beginning, this was a real treat. A shock to the system as we never thought it would be possible to hear those songs live from the actual man who wrote them. I mean, we’ve heard some great cover bands do them, but Jourgensen singing them again was just not in the cards. I mean, it didn’t make sense for the band as they’ve changed (all members but Jourgensen) since those days. They’ve been known for their extreme heavy industrial metal sound for more than 30 years. Saturday, we saw and heard how that transformation of fan appreciation would unfold.

The stage and band looked different. Red roses covered the stage and Jourgensen’s pulpit. New members flanked the stage like a symphony was being assembled. Various woman back up singers AKA “Ministrettes’, “Ministrings,” the female cellist and violin players, another keyboard player (who we learned was Charlie Clouser) and even the drums Mayorga player were a hybrid of traditional acoustic and electronic. All mixed in with Jourgensen’s regular band mates John Bechdal, Cesar Soto, Roy Mayorga, Monte Pittman and Paul D’Amour. Jourgensen has changed his look as well. Last year he lost all the face piercings and lately he’s been dawning a large brim black hat, released dreadlocks now flowing long straight hair and black preacher outfit with necklace charms all reminiscent to Alejandro Jodorowsky’s “The Holy Mountain” character, The Alchemist.

First up was “Work For Love”. The 1983 single that helped put Ministry’s name on the map for pop music. This became a club hit for years and surprisingly still a crowd chanting favorite as the audience sang along as if it never left the band catalogue.

From there we got “All Day” from the 1986 album “Twitch”. The hybrid album that saw Ministry moving from Synth Pop to more Industrial. That followed by, “Over The Shoulder”, “Just Like You” and “We Believe” also from the same album. Going even farther back into the early years was a single released on the Wax Trax! Records label “I’m Falling” (1981).

For the end of the set, we hear the band return to “With Sympathy”. “Effigy (I’m Not An)” and “Revenge” the MTV video hit of 1983. They wrapped up the quick set with the fan favorite “(Everyday Is) Halloween”. Bop Bop and all.

I have to say, as amazing as it was to hear these songs again by Jourgensen, it was a little uneasy. I mean, we’ve been asking to hear this again for 40 years, but with the way Ministry went in the last 30 decades and the band he’s built around the sound, it was well, weird. At some points, you would see band members out of place, just kind of standing there waiting for a part for them to play as back then, they didn’t have metal guitar parts. Again, don’t get me wrong, we needed and wanted this and so glad we finally got it, but now that it’s happened, maybe they can get back to what they’ve become known for and championed. The next progression I want to see is getting Paul Barker back and get his sound back in the mix with maybe a tour with “The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste” from beginning to end. Or maybe that era from 1988 to 1995.

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