Print-friendly Version
Ministry maps farewell tour for spring
Industrial-rock icons Ministry have announced dates for a purported farewell tour on the heels of the release of one last studio album from the long-running act.
Titling it the "C U LaTour," the band kicks off what may be its ultimate trek March 28 in Vancouver, with the farewell procession hitting 27 cities through early May. All dates are listed below.
The lineup for the trek consist of frontman Al Jourgensen, guitarists Tommy Victor and Sin Quirin, keyboardist John Bechdel and drummer Jimmy DeGrasso, with Static X's Tony Campos taking over at bass for the late Paul Raven, who suffered a fatal heart attack in Switzerland last month. Fear Factory vocalist Burton C. Bell will join the band as "special featured artist," according to a press release, while Swedish experimental metal band Meshuggah and US thrash artists Hemlock will hold down opening support for the tour, which should pick up a few extra guests along the way.
"In the past, in each city we've been known to have everybody from Kirk Hammett to Jello Biafra step onstage," Jourgensen told MTV.com last week. "And since this will be the last tour, they'll all be coming out of the woodwork."
"The Last Sucker" completes the band's recent trilogy of explicitly anti-George W. Bush albums, which began with 2004's "Houses of the Mole" and continued last year with "Rio Grande Blood."
"I've got other things to do," Jourgensen told Billboard.com in May 2006 as the band was prepping to record "The Last Sucker," which appeared in stores in September. "I just started a label (13th Planet Records), and I want to sign some bands and really build it up like I did with WaxTrax in the '80s, not just a vanity label."
"I think it's time--and I'll be leaving on the top of my game instead of hanging on too long and doing crappy Aerosmith and Rolling Stones albums 30 years later," he added.
Jourgensen, the only remaining member of the Chicago-based band, which formed in 1981, has one last present for fans; "Cover Up," a newly recorded 12-track album, will hit stores concurrently with the group's final tour.
The set features cover versions of a variety of classics, including The Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb," The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)," Deep Purple's "Space Truckin'" and T-Rex's "Bang a Gong." The disc--which features a variety of guest vocalists, including Bell and Cheap Trick's Robin Zander--ends with Jourgensen tackling the Louis Armstrong favorite "What a Wonderful World."
"It's all me, baby," he told MTV.com. "It's the final song on the record and it's my final salute of having anything come out new that’s under the name of Ministry."
