Ministry
The Warfield, San Francisco
June 3, 2025
Photos by Raymond Ahner
For years my wife and I played a game where we would ask each other what the most we would ever spend on a single concert ticket would be, and what the show would be. Both of our answers were always a few hundred dollars to see Ministry performing nothing but their early material. Thankfully some cosmic force was listening to us because, starting last year at Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, Ministry mastermind Al Jourgensen has warmed up to their first couple of albums and has now taken the band on tour to support a new album of rerecordings of material that was originally released throughout the early-to-mid 1980s, The Squirrely Years. One of the last stops on the tour was at The Warfield in San Francisco, a show that was all but sold out.
Some of the members of the audience had been there to see the band evolve from their new wave origins to their eventual industrial metal sound, and others hadn’t even been born when wither With Sympathy or Twitch were originally released. Regardless of age, everyone cheered as the band took the stage to an image of Donald Trump with the word “IMBECILE” plastered over him. Every member was donned in a sparkling top, with Al Jourgensen wearing a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses and a large fuzzy hat. “This one is called ‘Work For Love!'” he shouted before the band launched into an updated version of classic song from their first album. Backed by a pair of silver bodysuit-clad backing singers dubbed The Squirrelettes, the band tore through the first song of the set, the eclectic crowd shouting back “WORK!” every time that Jourgensen pointed his mic into the audience.
The arrangement of the new version of “Work For Love” incorporates the bands signature distorted guitars, but to call the update “metal” would be wrong. The band has been faithful to the original arrangements of these songs and has given them the attention and reverence that they so rightfully deserve. It would have been easy for Ministry to just turn a song like “Just Like You” or “Here We Go” into chugging guitar-heavy songs that didn’t sound anything like the originals, but the heart of the original songs were all still there. Whether it be the atmospheric synths of “Over The Shoulder,” the opening guitar line of “Effigy (I’m Not),” or the synth horns of “I’d Do Anything For You,” each song was still instantly recognizable.
Highlights of the show for me were “We Believe” from Twitch, guitarists Monte Pittman and Cesar Soto and new drummer Pepe Clark Magaña injecting the chorus with a shot of adrenaline that caused the crowd to start the biggest most pit of the evening. Bassist Paul D’Amour helped to turn “All Day” into a more rhythmic and driving version than was originally found on the band’s second album, and keyboardist John Bechdel remained faithful to all of the synth hooks that made songs like “Same Old Madness” and “Revenge.” And the backing vocals on songs like the aforementioned opener “Work For Love” by the two Squirrelettes, Leni Badpenny von Eckardt and Dez Cuchiara, just helped the songs to harken back to the original versions that I had fallen in love with when I first heard them.
And then there was Uncle Al himself. If afterwards he claimed that he wasn’t having a good time onstage then he would be a liar. Maybe it’s because the San Francisco date was so late into the tour, but it seemed that he was actually enjoying the songs that for decades he had so publicly disowned. One can hope that certain songs from the set are featured by the band on their supposed last tour next year, as all of the songs from Twitch could easily fit in next to more contemporary songs by the band.
Ministry closed their main set with a performance of “(Everyday Is) Halloween” which absolutely brought the house down, with the band reminding the crowd why it is one of their most popular songs. Soon they came back onstage for a two-song encore of two covers. The first was “Ricky’s Hand” by Fad Gadget, a song that the band has covered live on and off over the last four decades. The closing song for the evening was the Revolting Cocks’ reinterpretation of Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” If I were to levy one complaint about the performance, it would be that I would have preferred the show had been closed with an original by the band, as once the show ended I was thinking less about Ministry and more about Revolting Cocks and Rod Stewart. But with a show as fantastic as the one that Ministry put on, that would just be a nitpick.
After decades of completely ignoring almost all of the bands early material, seeing Ministry perform these songs felt like nothing short of a revelation. To finally see Al Jourgensen and his band celebrate the songs that helped put the band on the map is an experience that I will fondly look back on for the rest of my life. For as much as I love Ministry’s material from the 1990s onward, With Sympathy and Twitch have always been my favorite two albums by the band, and if you had told me that I would be in a heaving crowd of sweaty Ministry fans screaming, “I’m not an effigy” with Al onstage while headshots of him from the era were set ablaze in the backing video, I wouldn’t have believed you. And it’s still hard to believe that it actually happened.
Opening the show was the German electro-industrial band Die Krupps. Still featuring original members Jürgen Engler and Ralf Dörper, the quartet was rounded out by drummer Paul Keller and guitarist Dylan Smith, the bands trademark sound translated perfectly to a live setting. The six song set felt all too short, but Die Krupps used every second to their advantage and I can’t wait to see them live again.
Playing a longer support set was Wax Trax alumni My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult. Playing a live set of material focusing on their “classic” Wax Trax albums, the quartet had the crowd on their feet and dancing to fan favorites such as “The Days Of Swine And Roses” and “Sex In Wheelz.” Frontman Groovie Mann absolutely still has the sauce, and I would argue that he had as much control of the crowd as Al Jourgensen would during Ministry’s set later in the evening.
