On Sunday the 13th Hamburg spread it legs for another rock and roll star… Manson….the venue the Grosse Freiheit (Big Freedom) just off the main porn street in Hamburg…Reeperbhan… yes a town renowned for its prostitutes, pimping, whoring, burning, raping, looting and shooting believed it was ready for a man who used to explode fake chickens on stage… a man with fake tits… a man with almost as many tattoo's on his arms as John5… indeed the God of Fuck was preparing to play in Germanys City of Fuck….

So the nights revelry started at 21:00 with the opening of the doors…always a good start to a any event… the first thing I noticed was that the crowd was fucking young…in fact I almost didn't notice this as I couldn't see half of the fuckers I just kept on falling over these little small people who seemed somehow lost without their parents…if Manson is out to prove that the only way to destroy mainstream is to become it he definitely has the backing of Germanys kiddies… so me and the kids where in the lucky position of having no support band … I say this simply because most of the reviewers slated the support bands of the previous concerts… anyway after much pushing and shoving I made my way up to the front of the crowd… well in fact I just took a few big steps… as can be expected the real fans, ie the over 21s, where all standing around the crush barriers waiting … after a good 40 minutes the lights dimmed Twiggy and John5 came out from either side of the big white sheet which was the 'backdrop' (a real no expenses spared set-up) and seconds later Mansons' twisted demented shawdow could be seen through the sheet…. The sheet went up or fell down or just did whatever sheets do at Manson concerts and there he was looking like some kind of tormented KISS fan….. torso naked and wearing sliver space boots and a small corset type thingy around his ass along with some kind of latex pants and blue paint on this forehead… the crowd went fucking mental and he started into The Reflecting God ….

I'm not going to go into the details of which song came where or what the name of each one is as previous reviewers have… simply because I was too busy having a good fucking time to take notes… but I'll mention the high points of the night….

Manson was continually feeling himself up during the concert, nothing new there, but I was really impressed when during Cake and Sodomy he turned his back to the audience and pulled down the little black number he was wearing and proceeded to stick the microphone up his ass… and he wasn't happy with any half-hearted attempted here was a man hell bend on getting that fucking thing up there… after a couple of minutes of what can be best described as 'taking music from behind' he gave up… and started back to trying to hump the floor… He kept up the crowd participation by screaming "How many of you here are in love ?", and then "How many of you here want to fuck…. Me ?"…. During Speed of Pain a shower of glitter was dropped from the ceiling on top of the crowd really getting everyone into the christmas atmosphere… he of course did the usual antics of using the mic and the mic stand as large baseball bat/dildo/swing and at one stage started fucking the mic at Ginger which I feared would all end in tears but he quickly calmed down and turned into the more placid Omega he has now become…

As for the rest of the band…Pogo was fucking unbelievable and really reaffirmed the belief I have that he is undoubtedly one of the coolest fuckers on the planet… with hair spiked and some kind of fucked up blue light on his jacket he did fuck all except what I can best describe as him trying to drive his keyboard, which has two handles on either side, around his part of the stage… he banged away at his drum during Lunchbox and the rest of the time was just basically in his own little world… Ginger was Ginger…. and Twiggy was as professional as ever but a little too sedate … however I have to reiterate what most reviewers have said and that is that John5 was a real fucking surprise…he was really giving it his all continuously… the highlight being when he launched into his own little fucked up ditty at the end of Sweet Dreams which ended up with him kneeling on the ground in a deformed foetal position and head-banging his guitar….

In conclusion while it wasn't the best concert I've ever seen it was what I expected after reading the reviews and so I can't complain about the performance… however it was only about 70 mins long which was a bit disappointing…. but if you're still a fan of his it is worth checking out…. I should have some photos to upload by the end of the week to give you all a glimpse of what you're missing…..

Eddie