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Very recently, a good friend and I decided to see a tourstop on what is billed as the final tour for the band Ministry, a legendary “industrial” band who broke ground in the genre back in the late 80’s and truly achieved attention with their pummeling album from 1992, Psalm 69.  They enjoyed some time in the spotlight again in 2001 when Steven Spielberg decided to cast them in the film A.I., where they made an appearance and contributed to the soundtrack.

That being said, the last three studio albums from Ministry have consisted of a series of anti-President Bush-themed releases.  While that is a novel concept for maybe one album…  three?  Yes, an artist should embrace their passions and put it on record, but at what point is it simply self-indulgent and a bit punishing for the fans?

My friend and I also saw Springsteen earlier in the week (try and name someone else who saw Bruce Springsteen and Ministry in the same week… you can’t) who has his own feelings about the current administration which he voiced clearly live, but did not make it the overall theme of the show.  People largely come to a concert to escape reality, not plunge further into it.  Doing some research prior to the show, we realized that the bulk of the setlist was dedicated to the Bush trilogy albums, which largely are the same song over and over.  We thought about bailing altogether, but that wouldn’t be quite fair… so we did go and stand with the rest of the dressed-in-all-black-disenfranchised-youth and when the band came on and the music started the crowd, apart from meathead moshers who would go nuts at a Michael Bolton show because they want to break things, was largely not very animated.

The songs did not resonate with anyone.  People came to a tour billed as the final one for a band people felt passionate about and were largely wondering why they were there if they weren’t going to hear their favorite songs.  I learned this by speaking to people who were standing there with arms-crossed as well as with online reviews of prior shows.  Only till the encore did they pull out such songs as “N.W.O.” and “Just One Fix”, but by that time we had left, not wanting to waste a valuable Friday night.

So what do you do when your favorite artist goes one way and you wish they stayed the course?  Someone said that every great artist does not repeat themselves, but when happens when the fans clamor for it?

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