Ministry revive the Psalm 69 song Scarecrow at Red Rocks after 23 years

Ministry went a long way back into the catalogue at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado on 15 September, playing Scarecrow for the first time since 2003. The song comes from Psalm 69, the 1992 album that took the Chicago band from the industrial underground into the mainstream, and it had been off the setlist long enough that most people had written it off.

The other surprise came later in the night. Former bassist Paul Barker walked on for Useless, from 1996's Filth Pig, sharing a stage with Al Jourgensen for the first time in years. Acid Bath opened the show. The setlist, logged on Setlist.fm, ran from Reload, Crumbs and Dead Guy through Scarecrow, Lava, Filth Pig and Useless before the closing stretch of N.W.O., Just One Fix, Stigmata, Thieves, Goddamn White Trash and Jesus Built My Hotrod.

Barker's return onstage is warmer than his involvement on record. The band's farewell album, Hate to Go (Take Out or Delivery), arrives on 30 October through Cleopatra Records, and for all the talk about him being back, he is credited on one track: the closer, We're Still Here.

The album's third single, Singularity, arrived the same week, with a video directed by Ben Garcia of Rage4Order Designs alongside Jourgensen and Joshua Bradford, formerly of Revolting Cocks. It follows the heavily AI-generated clip for We Hate from earlier in the campaign.

Ministry started in Chicago in 1981 as a synth-pop project under Jourgensen before hardening into the industrial band that made Twitch, The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. Psalm 69 brought the first of six Grammy nominations. Across 45 years the group have put out 17 studio albums, paused in 2013, returned in 2018 with AmeriKKKant, and kept going through 2024's Hopiumforthemasses.

The farewell is being taken slowly. After Red Rocks the band were due at Louder Than Life in Louisville on 20 September, then the Salt Shed in Chicago on 3 October with Acid Bath and Windhand, Sick New World Texas in Fort Worth on 24 October, and four Australian dates in December including three Good Things festival appearances. Those are tracked in the tour guide with the rest of the run.

The long goodbye continues into 2027 with a European tour alongside Die Krupps, opening in Utrecht on 2 April and finishing in Helsinki on 1 May, taking in Manchester, Dublin, Nottingham, London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Warsaw. For a metal and rock institution with 17 albums behind it, a song shelved for 23 years is a reasonable way to start winding down.