Al Jourgensen's industrial juggernaut Ministry has been on the road with Alien Weaponry and Carpenter Brut since late November, starting in San Francisco before looping around the country to wind up back in Los Angeles in support of their most recent album, Amerikkkant. The first half of the band's set ran through the album's full track list before Jourgensen and cohorts trotted back out to spoil the audience with what he referred to as "doggie treats," a.k.a. a rundown of Ministry classics like "Stigmata," "Thieves" and "Just One Fix."
On Friday evening at L.A. venue The Fonda, the singer had a special surprise for fans of his pre-Twitch club bangers. Between songs, Jourgensen told the crowd, "We're burnt out, and we're pretty high. We're so high in fact, that we did a bunch of old shit for you guys and we decided we're sick of playing old shit right now, so we decided we're gonna play something even older." The crowd, clued in a bit and vocally excited, continue screaming as Uncle Al continued, "This one is, uh, 37 years old this year, and I've never done this song on stage ... If we suck, let us know so we don't play it tomorrow."
Still in full-on tease mode, Jourgensen revealed he would be bringing out some friends to help with a "special acoustic version of the aforementioned song" before introducing Dave Navarro and Striker's Dan Cleary. "We feel pretty naked up here," jokes the singer before requesting in jest that everyone turn their cameras off.
The cobbled-together band then launched into a stripped-down, western-tinged version of the 1984 hit "(Everyday Is) Halloween," a song that Jourgensen has long avoided following his transition to a more hard-edged industrial-music style in the late 1980s. Not just popular in its time, the track remains a staple in goth dance clubs today, and the acoustic treatment gives new dimension to the bouncy, spooky version fans have come to know and love over the decades.
While Jourgensen claimed it was the first performance of the tune, there is a recording of the group pulling it out in 1986 at a Toronto show released as a live album. No one can blame Al for seemingly forgetting the 30-year-old gig given his history of wild behavior and indulgent habits, so enjoy listening to both. Hopefully, fans can look forward to catching this unforgettable classic in future Ministry sets for years to come.
