Pretty much ever since I took this gig here at SAVSCI I’ve been trying to find some good Ministry live concert footage to post. They’ve been “pound for pound” one of the best live bands on the planet for the past decade or so, but for some reason all of the live clips in existence suck in quality.

BTW, notice how Al Jorgensen is morfing into a bizarre hybrid of Hells Angels’ bossman Sonny Barger and wrestling icon Terry Funk. Ministry has always held a significant place in my life for some reason. When I was in college I got into a fistfight with a kid who had the nerve to suggest that The Godfathers were better live than Ministry. I won. Alcohol may have been involved.

In 1992, Ministry was the “semi-final” act at the Lollapalooza Festival and blew headliners The Red Hot Chili Peppers off the stage. They were touring to promote their classic “Psalm 69″ album and the RHCP had just begun their inexorable downward spiral that started with the “Blood Sugar Sex Magic” album. That album is arguably the most disappointing followup to a classic ever, coming on the heels of the great “Mothers Milk”. RCHP had started to believe their own press clippings, starting acting like rock stars and according to most accounts started taking too many drugs. They simply lost their edge, while Ministry still had the “edge” of a freshly broken beer bottle. The Lollapalooza lineup that year was solid from top to bottom and despite their mainstream popularity the RHCP were the weak link having to follow not only Ministry but Ice Cube, Soundgarden (before they started to suck), Pearl Jam, The Jesus and Mary Chain and Lush. Depending on where you attended Lollapalooza that year the *second stage* featured Rage Against the Machine, Stone Temple Pilots and Cypress Hill. I’ll never forget standing in the Desert Sky Pavilion in Phoenix during the first part of the RCHP set watching fans literally stream toward the exits. Of course it wasn’t long before I joined them.

First, here’s Psalm 69 live at the Wacken Open Air Festival 2006:

Here’s Ministry playing N.W.O. live in the Netherlands in 2008:

Finally, here’s the band playing “So What” from a promo clip for their live album “In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up” from 1988. That’s Chris Connelly on vocals here who has been involved in some capacity or another with too many great bands to count including Ministry, Pigface, The Revolting Cocks, Die Warzau, KMFDM and others. I didn’t want to include any “pro-shot” footage but this was the only thing I could track down featuring the cool “steel mesh fence” stage set they used during this era.