every band is raving about their current album and they’re promoting it by playing alot of songs from it on the respective tours.
some boots from pre-lorah and lorah tours show they still played some twitch stuff, only “hardened up” (we believe, isle of man/where you at now combo were still played on lorah tour for example) so al is definately not embarassed about twitch stuff, he also stated that in a couple of interviews.
as far with sympathy deal goes, he still was doing some pop stuff after he left arista (halloween, all day) but a bit harshened up, moreso he did that stuff before (primental, and infamous same old mandess) so him saying that “arista made me do all that pop shit” is kind of not true. either he was just fed up with it or got into harder stuff musically which made him change the style so dramatically. i can see him being emarassed about with sympathy stuff for sure, yes, especially when he was doing stuff like stigmata, thieves, nwo and especially some venomous filth pig stuff, but denying that he once was into synths and poppy music is just what it is - denial.
i even remember one of his interviews when he sort of admitted it like “sure, alot of that stuff is me, yes, but they blah blah blah (insert his usual arista putdown)”. so there. the last time ministry played really old shit was far back in 2003 when they played “we believe” but only on a couple of shows.
the 2003 tour had very very balanced setlist, included all the staples (thieves nwo stigmata so what, etc), 3-4 songs from animositisomina, 2 from dark side, several from filth pig. too bad no good official recording of it exists, it would’ve been good “final” release for the band.
after that barker left, al started his own label and then the setlist changes were realy apparent - mostly new stuff with less and less of the “old” stuff. the main factor for the changes is probably copyright issues, as warner own probably all of '86-2002(3) stuff. this is also the obstacle for any of the re-releases/remasters.
i can see that anyone can get tired of playing any song, no matter how good or popular it is for too long, that’s for sure. but the last tour was very disappointing because the advertisment said “setlist spanning exciting 25 years of ministy’s career” and instead people got exact same setlist everywhere (save for a few dates) with the bush trilogy songs and a couple of popular hits.
the culmination for that was when al announced “we’re gonna play some old ones, this is called n.w.o.” and the band kicks in playing “no w”, lol indeed. and then later he states that latest revco album is his best creation EVER. no comments!!
