Let the Banshee Rage:
Ministry, L7, Live at the Paramount Theater, Seattle, August 20, 1999
Live Review by J.Kim
Heading into the Ministry show at the Paramount in Seattle, WA, we knew their performance would not match those of earlier years during the Wax Trax salad days. Too many drugs had one Al Jourgensen done.
That did not deter one member of my entourage from postponing her business trip to New York by a couple days. It did not deter several members from driving from parts as far as Vancouver and West Seattle to see this show. It did not deter the seven of us from shelling out $30 (one $60, as he had left his ticket in Vancouver and had to scalp).
Perhaps a bit of the macabre in us secretly wanted to see if Jourgensen would make it through the show; the man’s blood has gotten more corrupted than a Monsanto product. We had every intention of catching L7, in part for the same reason, but all-ages shows in Seattle must end before midnight, which means they start during rush hour traffic. In the summer that means dressing like a psychoslut before sunset, we tried, but arrived just in time for the start of Ministry’s set. Perhaps we wanted to resurrect our nihilist demonic spirits and forget momentarily about (gasp) real estate purchases. Most importantly, this band meant something to us. They turned many of us onto the genre. They opened and unleashed rage at all the intangibles that surrounded us with complex anger and twisted logic. They made us realize guitar players do not have to sound like Steve Vai. They made us drop our jaws at one point.
Ministry made me realize there was more to music than KRS One. Ministry saved me from the poor self-imitation that rap has become. Ministry deconstructed my idea of music. Seeing Al Jourgensen scream “Die” in “So What” is like receiving communion from the Pope.
One of the most vexing bands in industrial history, Ministry wrote the seminal dark wave song “Everyday is Halloween,” then completely denounced their early recordings. And they got away with it. Ministry simply was, and still is, that good.
Ministry delivered on the promises, they presented the blitzkrieg of “New World Order” and even ended with the blazing cover of “Supernaut” from one of many side projects, 1000 Homo DJs.
They added material from their new album, which does not measure completely up and sounds too much like the Lard project minus Jello Biafra, but Land of Rape and Honey forever raised the bar too high.
However, the Aug. 20 show failed to measure up to some of our expectations through little fault of the band. The one mistake they made was not playing “Stigmata” but perhaps Jourgensen can no longer sustain the scream which opens the song. The guitars thundered like herds of buffalo as the keyboards created haunting frightening sounds of whistles in hell that no other band makes.
Everything besides the band that night disappointed, the sound in the Paramount bounced off the ceiling more than it projected from the stage, adding an extra level to the existing distortion making the performance unintelligible unless standing right next to a speaker. The Paramount Gestapo roamed the audience with flashlights making sure no one smoked, drank, groped or enjoyed.
The audience committed the most heinous crime during the show, they stood like deer caught in headlights, staring at the band and barely moving. Some body-surfed, others raised their arms at the appropriate spots, but for the most part, the audience stood afraid to sweat inside their latex. My out-of-town visitors, one originally from New Orleans, another a Santa Fe native, asked me what is with this town, and I could only answer, “Welcome to Seattle.” A town cursed with rock critics and musician poseurs, people have an odd way of showing when they enjoy a show. I have never seen so many people pay $30 to stand around and look bored.
My New Yorker comrade, who had attended graduate school in Chicago during the late 80s, also refuses to give in to stand-around-look-cool norm. The lot of us got several stares as we offered to Ministry our ritualistic celebratory tribal dances. Occasionally, I would focus on Paul Barker or try and catch Jourgensen’s eyes, but otherwise I simply enjoyed the performance too much to stare at the performers like a mummy. Fuck Seattle!
Arriving home, I considered checking their tour schedule to see if I could catch them in Los Angeles, the one city that makes me physically sick and feverish. Yet I thought to truly see Ministry, I would have to leave Seattle and its wallflower people to their own self-important misery.
Still, I thank Jourgensen and Barker for hanging on, even when rumors said they would never tour again. I thank them for opening my ears to a beloved genre. And I thank them for tapping into the darkest hell of my brain and letting the banshee rage. Fuck Seattle.