I love getting free stuff, but then again who doesn’t? So when my good friend Ashley rang and told me he had gotten free tickets to Marilyn Manson I was pretty chuffed. The music gave me flashbacks to high school when all you could smell was weed and after seeing his short interview in the movie ‘Bowling For Columbine’ I thought that he came across as poignant, well informed and interesting. I’ll be the first to admit I’m no hardcore fan, I’m merely just an occasional listener and observer, so Manson fans please don’t use me as a ‘virgin sacrifice’.
Touted as being an anti-Christ shock rocker, my friends and I were expecting something that would astound us, something that would leave us with a lasting memory but alas we were left disappointed. I’ve heard stories of him sodomising his back up dancers with microphones, violating a bouncer and even bending over in front of the crowd and shoving his own finger in his arse. All things anal aside, there wasn’t anything that shocked me. He sure did spit a lot, although spitting can be seen thanks to the hoodrats that hang at train stations. Possibly all the hype and media interest has blown up in his over made up face. Marilyn Manson has now just become a caricature within the caricature that he has created for himself.
Instead of an outrageous showman, I was faced with a band that barely moved and may have appeared to be on lots of Ketamine. The band possibly handed out Ketamine to the whole audience who were surprisingly timid. The mosh-pit at the Arctic Monkeys concert was a hell of a lot more brutal. The sound quality wasn’t the best, but apparently Festival Hall has never been that top notch and Marilyn’s voice certainly didn’t match the quality of the albums as his voice would cut out mid roar. I could talk about the music some more every song has a similar quality to it, heavy bass with a lot of chanting going on. You know the deal.
The redeeming feature of the show was that he did tell some pretty amusing anecdotes and did get me chuckling. People watching was the name of the game when some of the slower stuff played, an adorable mother and daughter duo who were about 5 feet tall, pumping their fists and smoking a joint and a young child who had more energy than the whole crowd put together caught my eye. Playing ‘The Beautiful People’ as the last song for the night, with its super catchy riff always makes me happy.
So if you paid $90 a ticket for an hour and a half long show when the most exciting theatrics were him putting on about five different hats while a man with a spot light stood behind him, I’d probably be disappointed. Maybe he’s just becoming a model citizen? Or maybe he's shocking us by not shocking us at all?
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