Ministry has released a new live album on Bandcamp — with a vinyl edition following in September — that, while not advertised as such, is taken from the same 1990 concert that spawned the six-song In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up live album and home video.
The new set is called Live Necronomicon, and it can be purchased and streamed now via Bandcamp (in fact, you can listen to the whole record below). A double-vinyl pressing, limited to 500 copies, is available for pre-order ahead of its Sept. 1 release date; only 71 copies remained this morning.
Related: Ministry announces plans to release new studio album AmeriKKKant this fall
There is no product information for Live Necronomicon, but images of the vinyl release include a photo of a master-tape reel dated 2/22/90, the date Ministry played the Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, Ind. — the performance captured, in very abbreviated form, on In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up.
The show was part of the tour for 1989’s The Mind is a Terrible Thing To Taste, a trek that saw bandleader Al Jourgensen flesh out the touring version of Ministry into a 10-piece industrial supergroup, adding Skinny Puppy’s Nivek Ogre, Revolting Cocks member Chris Connelly, Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys and Lard, and a second drummer, Martin Atkins, of Public Image Ltd. and many other groups.
The new live release, at 14 songs, omits the performance of Revolting Cocks’ “Stainless Steel Providers,” two Jello Biafra spoken-word pieces (“Message From Our Sponsor” and “Pledge of Allegiance”) and something listed on the setlist as “Country Interlude.” It does, however, include performances of songs by Pailhead, Lard, Skinny Puppy and PiL, in addition to plenty of Ministry.
Perhaps most notably, according to fans who’ve listened to the set, is that the Merillville tracks are now presented without the heavy overdubs featured on In Case You Didn’t Feel Like Showing Up, with some of Connelly’s and Ogre’s vocals now much more prominent than on the prior release.
Stream the new Live Necronomicon release below.
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Pay $10,000 for Ministry’s new ‘AmeriKKKant’ and Al Jourgensen will remix your song
- Ministry’s ‘Same Old Madness’ finally released on ‘Twelve Inch Singles 1981-1984’ reissue
- Watch Al Jourgensen moonlight as a TV weatherman ahead of new Ministry tour, live album
- Ministry’s Al Jourgensen to enter rehab for alcohol abuse: ‘I need help on this one’
- Vintage Video: Ministry at First Avenue, 1983 — watch full ‘With Sympathy’-era set
This is a great thing. Also appreciate Cleopatra’s TORONTO 1986 set, as well. There has to have some murderous soundboard tapes of the RAPE AND HONEY era (Jourgensen/Barker/Rieflin/Ward/Ogre), somewhere…
This show has for quite a long time been one of my favorite concerts that I ever attended. To be able to hear the (mostly) full show is a total treat!
Pil Ministry \m/
I really don’t understand why the hell this was released. It is nothing more than a soundboard tape before it gets polished for an album. I didn’t know there was such a colossal fuckup on the drums during the “Breathe” intro. Now I can’t unhear it and I have to play the ICYDFLSU version to get it out of my head. Al & Co. should have sat down with this raw recording and brought it up to ICYDFLSU standards. And if it can’t be fixed, don’t include it. This is one of those “looking behind the curtain” moments that actually does harm rather than completes our music collections.