Trying to track down any information about this show. Scoured the internet but no luck at all.
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The closest I could find is an unknown January 1983 date for Minneapolis listed here:
https://prongs.org/ministry/tour81-83
There doesnāt appear to be a lot of documentation past July for that tour.
Any ideas on the set list? I know the 1982 shows had a ton of rotating songs.
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I suppose itās possible the show happened in January '83 but unlikely. Seems like early '83 was dedicated to recording in Boston. Iāll check it out but so far have gotten zero hits on this one.
Thanks for checking this out.
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Iāve never seen anything on it.
Itās definitely possible that the one in January 83 with all the question marks was actually in late 82.
A lot of those early dates listed with ?'s are based on some sketchy-ish info.
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Iām almost certain it happened in Sept/Oct of 82 after the Arista signing. Al & I were in Boston working at Synchro and we flew to Minneapolis and met everyone else at the show. JD was still a part of the band at the time. Stevo remembers the show (The Armory was, and still is, an impressive sight) but doesnāt have any details.
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It would be cool to reconstruct the timeline from late 1982 to the start of the With Sympathy Tour in 1983. When did the recording sessions at Synchro Sound start and finish? The āWork For Loveā single was released in February 1983 so was that recorded and mixed first? When did Brad Hallen and Mark Pothier officially join the band?
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Iām curious on some of the timelines as well. A while back I tried to figure what songs came from what sessions. I think all 5 demos that appear on the Trax Box all started in CRC in Chicago and were polished late 1982 at Syncro Sound in Boston. Iām pretty sure all of the 12"/7" singles all came out before the LP. Work For Love definitely did, and maybe Revenge.
I know Mark and Brad joined for the sessions that included the remake of I Wanted to Tell Her, A Walk In the Park, Here We Go and What He Say (I think). Iām almost positive those are all Boston recordings.
Something I always found interesting is the single for I Wanted To Tell Her doesnāt state anything about the song being remixed. The 7" remix appears on the UK LP, but the US LP uses the first version, which is actually a truncated version of the demo. It almost feels like the remake/remix was the intended final version, but Arista opted to use the demo cut instead for the US version.
Iām not sure why I nerd out so much on this stuff, but there you go 
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To the best of my recollection it went generally in this order:
Arista signing
AJ & RR in Boston to add, or replace, parts to the 5 songs that had been started in Chicago.
MPLS Armory show.
RR back to Chicago for Holidays and unsure of return. If ever.
SG and AJ to Boston to start recording of 4 songs that AJ wrote in Boston.
BH & MP join the band. Walk in the Park recorded at this time.
RR rejoins band in Studio and agrees to participate in upcoming summer tour (Feb '83)
May '83 band moves operations to Chicago and starts rehearsals at Metro.
The four āAristaā songs were nearly complete when I flew back to Boston in Feb. Feb/March/April were spent doing overdubs and vocals and final mixes. We rehearsed, as a band, in April at a music complex in Cambridge and worked on the live backing tracks in the studio.
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I love With Sympathy, and was thrilled about the other tracks from this era I hadnāt heard before when I got the Trax! Box (Same Old Madness, Same Old Scene, The Game Is Over, Letās Be Happy, Wait) I wish there was a second album with proper recordings of this stuffā¦
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Very cool! Thanks for sharing.
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Great find. I could have sworn this happened near the end of '82 but it appears my memory isnāt what it used to be.
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Perhaps there was more than one show at the Minneapolis Armory in 1982.
Which show(s) did Clive Davis attend to scout the band? 
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I think one of them was at the Metro in Chicago. Not sure on the date.
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There was only one Armory show. I think my confusion was about what recording session was in progress just prior to the show. If it was a Synchrosound session it would have happened until later as I first suspected. But it seems that the actual session was at Chicago Recording Co which lines up with the Armory show.
The Clive Davis thing would have happened around the same time. It was a showcase with no audience. Just Clive sitting at a little cafe table in the middle of an empty Metro dancefloor in the middle of the afternoon.
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Any memories about the Armory show and/or these recording sessions? When Same Old Madness was recorded?
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I donāt remember much, obviously, about the Armory show except that it was a one-off thing, not part of a tour. It was probably the largest venue weād play up to that point. IIRC the recording sessions were at Chicago Record Company (CRC) on Ohio Street just east of Michigan Avenue. Iain Burgess was behind the console and Tom Hansen was the engineer. I think we were working on a lot of the basic tracks for cuts that would eventually be polished up at Synchrosound and included on WS. Work for Love, Effigy, Revenge, Sheās Got a Cause and IWTTH evolved in that manner with the basic tracks recorded in Chicago and finished in Boston. The other 4 songs on WS were conceived, written and recorded in Boston in the studio. I didnāt have much to do with those.
SOM was recorded in Spring of '82. Not sure if we had started working at CRC yet so maybe it was done at Hedden West in Schaumburg? Again Iain Burgess was at the controls.
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Thanks for the details Wempathos - really dig reading the recollections.
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One of the newspaper clippings mentioned a possible Europe and Japan tour following the US With Sympathy dates. Was that ever in the works - maybe depending on how well WS was selling?
Where / when did things start to break down between Al and Clive Davis? I recall a post a few years back mentioning that the band reconvened in Chicago after the WS tour to start working on a second album for Arista where the demos of āThe Game Is Overā and āSame Old Sceneā emerged.
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Regarding Europe and Japanā¦wtfk? Too much obfuscation and misinformation near the end of '83 to even give you a ballpark answer.
We got together in Chicago sans Mark late '83 into early '84 and the vibe was different than it had been. It felt like we were being poured into a mold. I wouldnāt have minded putting my near term future in Arista and Lookout Management hands since both parties had solid reputations but I never signed the Arista contract. It didnāt seem like a good idea at the time, at least from my perspective. But you knowā¦fools rush in so, in retrospect, I think I made the right decision.
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