Gigs

Gig Review: Ministry + Illuminatus

[Venue: Waterfront, Norwich]
[Date: 28 May 2008]

Al Jourgensen never intended Ministry’s final tour to be a “Greatest Hits” tour. He wanted the ‘C U LaTour’ to be just like any other; to play and promote their albums from the last four or five years or so, because that’s relevant to the band as they are now. The last time I witnessed Ministry on stage was at the London Astoria in 2003, the ‘Animositisomina’ tour. Compared to tonight’s line-up it was totally different—back then there were two drummers and three guitarists! The current Ministry line-up apart from Jourgensen includes guitarist Tommy Victor (Prong), keyboardist John Bechdel (Prong, Killing Joke), guitarist Sin Qurin (Revolting Cocks), bassist Tony Campos (Static-X) and drummer Aaron Rossi (Prong).

Jourgensen has said of the tour recently in an interview, “Our encore satisfies some of the nostalgia people but not all of them. I’d be a fucking jukebox if I did.” I guess he has a point. Not only would he have such a massive back-catalogue of potential “hits” to play for the crowd, but he would miss out on playing the songs that he has made with the band’s current line-up and “political campaign”. The ‘Anti George W Bush Trilogy’ (consisting of ‘Houses of the Molé’, ‘Rio Grande Blood’, and ‘The Last Sucker’) may have alienated many Ministry fans of the 80s and 90s-sounding Ministry, but It is certainly a new direction for the band and at the same time Jourgensen has remained his most critical and ferocious.

Throughout the US leg of the ‘C U LaTour’, Meshuggah and Hemlock have been the support for Ministry. Unfortunately, neither of these bands made it to the UK tour dates. Instead, there has been various different supports, ranging from gothic metal band Pythia, who supported Ministry on the night before at the Forum, to tonight’s Nottingham-based progressive metal band Illuminatus.

I was at the back, near the bar for most of their set of epic tracks, and wandered down to the front to take a couple of photos. This was easy to do as the venue was half-full and most people weren’t too bothered about what they had to play. Illuminatus played a relatively tight set but it wasn’t really what I was expecting a support band for Ministry to sound like—though I didn’t really know what to expect. It is safe to say that the band didn’t leave an impression on me.

The previous night had seen Ministry grace the stage at Kentish Town’s Forum venue. The Forum has a capacity of around 2100, whereas the Waterfront can hold around 700. For such a legendary and inspirational band such as Ministry to play the tiny Waterfront, I expected the gig to sell out immediately. It didn’t. It was just about three-quarters full.

Ministry came on stage to a video backdrop of Revolting Cocks’ song ‘I’m Not Gay’ and soon went into ‘Lets Go’, the first track from 2007’s ‘Last Sucker’. The sound quality in the venue was ok, but from where I was standing you got pummeled by Sin’s Flying-V enforced riffs. ‘Let’s Go’ is a pacy song and the small pit at the front soon started to move. From then on it was more of the same from Ministry and a little disappointing that a few more diverse tracks didn’t make it in the set-list, though ‘No W’ certainly raised the tempo again—Jourgenson is at this point shouting and spitting constantly from his trademark mic stand. He is a good frontman, but fails to get the crowd to make a circle pit and the whole banter between band and crowd seemed a little awkward. The best response the band got was during ‘LiesLiesLies’. At this point the crowd seemed a little more involved with the night and this was a perfect end before the first of two encores. A lot of people, like me, had gone to this gig in the hope that Ministry would play a few old songs, for old time’s sake, and Ministry on this part delivered. If I had to pick a few songs to hear on their final tour, it would have to be ‘N.W.O’, ‘Just One Fix’ (both from ’92’s ‘Psalm 69’), and ‘Thieves’ (from ‘89’s ‘The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste’). It would have been fine if the band had finished on ‘Thieves’, and I think most die-hard fans would be too. However, as the second encore began a few of my friends were dreading hearing songs from the latest ‘Cover-Up’ album. It may have been fun in the making, but it’s certainly no fun for the listener. And to top it off Ministry completely butchered Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World’. There were plenty of bewildered faces as we left the venue and perhaps the night will be remembered for this and not the pioneering industrial metal band that once was.

Set list (I think):
• Let’s Go
• The Dick Song
• Watch Yourself
• Life is Good
• The Last Sucker
• No W
• Waiting
• Worthless
• Wrong
• Rio Grande Blood
• Senor Peligro
• LiesLiesLies
• Khyber Pass
——————–
• So What
• N.W.O.
• Just One Fix
• Thieves
———————
• Just Got Paid
• Roadhouse Blues
• Wonderful World

For fans of: Revolting Cocks, Static-X, Killing Joke
Band links = Ministry | Illuminatus

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