Ministry bashes Bush

• By JOHN WIRT
• Advocate music critic
• Published: Apr 22, 2008 - UPDATED: 11:03 a.m.

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NEW ORLEANS — Ministry let loose a firestorm of decibels Saturday night upon a sold-out House of Blues. It was a stop on the band’s C-U-LaTour, reportedly the final world trek for the rock-metal-industrial powerhouse that began 28 years ago. 

The New Orleans show was no greatest hits stroll down memory lane. Featuring much music from Ministry’s recent trio of anti-George Bush albums as well as beloved old favorites, the band’s two-hour assault pummeled a throng of fans into happy, communal oblivion. As for novices in the crowd who were not so familiar with Ministry, they were deer in the band’s blazing headlights. 

Ministry’s minister of mayhem, Al Jourgensen, wore a top hat, all-black attire and sunglasses. Sometimes his eyes appeared to glow from behind his shades, but then maybe that was just a reflection of stage lights. 

Jourgensen sang in the guttural metal-hardcore roar so many vocalists have imitated. He often leaned into his skeletal-looking mike stand, as if Ministry is the greatest hot rod ever made and he is its serenely confident pilot.

Concurrent with the band’s punishing volume, strobe lights flashed with blinding intensity as an incessant stream of video played behind the band. Quick-edit images of explosions, military forces on the march and in combat plus many clips from Bush speeches echoed Jourgensen’s unbridled disgust for the Bush administration.

Ministry launched its nearly two-hour show with the furious “Let’s Go,” a song from the 2007 CD, “The Last Sucker.” Jourgensen announced the disc’s title track shortly thereafter, saying, “This is a song about our stupid president.”

Images of Bush, mushroom clouds and 9/11 plus crescendo-timed super-strobe effects accompanied “The Last Sucker’s” blitzkrieg of condemnation. 

“Let’s start from the beginning of this idiot president’s reign,” Jourgensen added before “No W,” another barrage of tightly orchestrated outrage. 

In kind, there was the merciless groove and anti-Patriot Act rant of “Watch Yourself,” featuring Sin Quirin’s razing guitar solo, and the hyper-swift “Rio Grande Blood,” in which Bush says, “I am a weapon of mass destruction.” 

“That’s a tough one for us old folks to play,” Jourgensen said after the latter song, one of the show’s approximately 20 songs, nearly all of played at roaring tempos. 

The 49-year-old Jourgensen may be retiring Ministry, but he’ll continue producing, writing film scores, running his record label and working with his well-known side project, RevCo. 

“This town is like a mental institution,” Jourgensen told his frisky New Orleans audience. “I love it.” 

Leaving the stage following an hour and 15 minutes of sonic aggression, the band returned a few minutes later to dip into its back catalog, including a sing-along crowd favorite, “So What,” and “N.W.O.,” a 1992 tirade against the first President Bush featuring guest vocalist Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory fame.