Usually the kind of nights which end up with other people's sweat on you are pretty darn good, and this was no exception. The show was opened by Lacuna Coil who played really well. They put a lot of effort into their performance and it showed. Unfortunately, they weren't playing for a crowd who particularly liked them. Our lack of enthusiasm was most prevalent when the singer asked everyone to jump during the next song and almost everyone stood their ground. We were all desperate for them to get the heck off stage so Marilyn Manson could come on.
Once Lacuna Coil finished we were left waiting
forty minutes for Manson to come on stage. That's forty minutes of standing like a sardine in one hundred degree heat. It was
hell. Luckily we were stood behind a very good looking man and yes, we did spend an ashaming amount of time ogling his bum.
The highlight of the wait for Manson though was reading a man's texts over his shoulder. He was asking his wife/girlfriend if there was enough milk (well, we did have lots of standing around time, minds do wander) to which she replied
"enough until the morning unless you're wantin' Horlicks tonight". With the essence of rock and roll he then sent
"I'll pick some up on the way home".
Now for the good part. The band opened the show with the song
'Hey Cruel World' and the crowd went wild trying to get a good view of the man himself. The stage was smokey and Manson had a hand held dry ice/smoke blower and was blasting the audience. This may have looked really cool, but honestly we were half choking to death on the stuff.
All the classics were played like
'Disposable Teens' (ohmygoodness) and the new tracks were executed with the quality you'd expect from a rock god. At the beginning it was a bit mad, with everyone pushing and shoving, but five or six songs in we mellowed out (when
'Slow-mo-tion' came on) and there was an atmosphere of pure enjoyment.
My favourite song was
'Irresponsible Hate Anthem'. We behaved exactly like the crowds in the cd recordings by chanting
"we hate love, we love hate" until Manson came back on stage (he had about 5 or 6 costume changes) and played us what we wanted to hear. We. Went. Mad. Oh, it was everything I ever thought it would be.
The song with the best performance had to be
'Antichrist Superstar'. It was the longest costume change, about three minutes, and when he reappeared he was stood at a podium with the
Antichrist Superstar logo. I loved the way he imitated politicians by blowing kisses to the crowd and plastering a grin on his face. It was classic Manson behaviour. He was dressed in a full suit with black lines down his face, which were smudged within seconds, making me imagine the make up artist slapping their forehead from the side of the stage. He pulled out the old 'rip up the bible' routine, but only a few pages. The recession has hit harder than anyone thought possible, even Marilyn Manson can't afford to rip up a full bible.
Overall, the performance was excellent. We spoke to a few people after the show and there were ones who thought it was good but not as good as his last tour. I attended that one too and think they were both brilliant. I especially enjoyed this one because I was with my friend Ashy who's lovely, so lovely in fact she bought me one of the tour t-shirts (thanks again!), and now I get to spend the next three days in her company so expect some entertaining posts in the near future.
All in all I'd give the concert 8/10, purely because I don't like Lacuna Coil or waiting around in stifling heat. But if the rating was only based on watching Marilyn Manson then it'd be the full 10/10.
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Marilyn Manson @ O2 Academy Brixton 5/7/2012 |