Gig Watch: Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson

Brought To You By The Dwarf

Marilyn Manson – prepare to be offended, mesmerised and taken aboard as a prisoner.

Arriving at Festival Hall tonight we are met with the local Melbourne band Hatchet Dawn. Described as "groove crushing metal" blended with spooky, heavy, guttural rock with riffs and catchy vocal hooks, they are a new dawn of darkness.

With their debut EP "Faith In Chaos", they will no doubt have many grim followers who feel at home with the group.

Instead of playing in a morgue or under the silvery light of the moon, tonight they made Festering Hall shudder under their weeping arms of loud music connecting with the mosh pit of emos, old rockers and die-hard Marilyn Manson fans.

A truly great light show ensued with a very tall lead singer, Loki, with his vocals sounding like he just had his voice box removed and instead spoke through a machine.

There were a few groovy riffs amongst the clutter of grave music. Hearing the bassist talk was kind of odd after hearing the singing as he spoke with a good ole' Aussie accent.

This tour marks the seventh album for the Marilyn Manson band and a circuit of twenty years in the business.

Critics have hailed this as a major return to form with the album titled "The High End Of Low" which debuted at number twelve on the Aussie charts and number four on the US charts – their highest in the US for years.

Marilyn Manson made headlines many years ago with his shock look and expression which led to him being crowned the King of Goth-come glamour rock.

These days, though, people aren’t shocked about his traits, and churches don’t try banning him from entering their country.

However, the man puts on a mean show and is still a sensational performer.

Hat changes, coat changes, glitter to the max spewing out into the crowd and two slaves who bring him tablets of some sort, mask with oxygen and provide him with towels and beer – although I must add, out of a slab of beer he was given throughout the show, he would have only dconsumed half of one bottle as the rest was spat out at whoever was in his path and the rest thrown into the crowd.

Then we are given speeches mentioning how he ought to teach us about religion, drugs or sex but won’t- to which the punters booed him and agreed with him.

The gig starts with the curtain covering the stage and it isn’t dropped when Manson and crew explode on stage; a few bars are played before the curtain is gone before us.

Marilyn Manson was looking uber-cool with his jacket (pronouncing HELL ETC on it) with any reports of the man's swine flu outbreak appearing to be behind him and into the song We’re From America he launches.

The stage remains hazy throughout the entire gig (I think I saw splashes of a band) with Manson being the sole focus of attention.

'We love to hate, we hate to love’ the punters chant and into peril for Irresponsible Hate Anthem the band dive. Then straight onto Dried Up, Tied and Dead To The World and it’s almost cat-and-mouse with his slaves, he will throw anything and everything on stage and out the slaves dash ready to collect his hat, or prop back his microphone in case Manson delivers a nasty execution to them perhaps?!

Knife on the microphone is reminiscent of a Psycho bath scene and he delivers Dope Show to the ever- respondent crowd. I am not sure about putting a towel down your pants then throwing to the crowd is really, er, becoming but hey, the fan that caught it is probably never going to wash it... ever!

Rock is Dead is concluded with Marilyn Manson telling off a punter for almost abusing a girl; "nobody hurts a girl but me".

Tourniquet springs more crowd participation and the Eurythmics cover Sweet Dreams which allows Manson to have a silent and deadly look about him (more than normal) and before we know it, the encore takes place.

Tonight’s gig ends on The Beautiful People (of course) with white confetti bursting out and covering the black crowd - it looked fantastic.