Al Jourgensen walked down a nostalgic corridor — yes, the corridor — with the rest of Ministry this past weekend, with the industrial titans taking on a vintage set of tunes from the band's new romantic and pop era for the Cruel World festival.
The Saturday (May 11th) performance at Pasadena, California's Rose Bowl was heavy on material from 1983 debut album With Sympathy and 1986's Twitch.
While older, pop-style songs like "Revenge" and "(Everyday Is) Halloween" have popped up in Ministry sets in semi-recent times, earlier tracks like "Work for Love," "I'm Falling" and "Effigy (I'm Not An)" have legitimately not been played by Jourgensen in 40 years. You can see clips from the nostalgic performance above and below.
That Jourgensen took on the set to begin with was remarkable — the Ministry bandleader long turned away from the softest, synth-pop parts of his musical history. After a pep talk with tourmate and synth icon Gary Numan, though, Ministry started working on metal-ized revamp of "Revenge" for their regular sets, and Jourgensen began the process of re-working and "re-owning" his earliest works for the live stage, coming to terms with the music before Ministry's impeding wind down.
"We turned them into arena-rock songs," Jourgensen told Rolling Stone earlier in the spring. "I feel empowered, and it's very cathartic for me to finally be able to own these songs instead of run from them. This Cruel World thing is going to be literally a public exorcism."
Its currently unclear if Ministry have more New Wave performances in mind for the future, but the band are on tour with Alice Cooper and Rob Zombie this summer, delivered HOPIUMFORTHEMASSES this past March, and recently reunited with bassist Paul Barker. Jourgensen has also said there's one more Ministry album on the way before he retires the project.
Ministry setlist 5/11/2024:
Work for Love (First time live since 1984)
All Day (First time live since 1987)
Over the Shoulder (First time live since 1987)
Just Like You (First time live since 1987)
We Believe (First time live since 2003)
I'm Falling (First time live since 1984)
Effigy (I'm Not An) (First time live since 1984)
Revenge
(Everyday Is) Halloween (First time since 2019)
