They came in their thousands, from all over Britain and further afield, crowding the streets of Brixton in a seething mass of fishnet and dye. Many of them sported shirts to proclaim their allegiance, but it didn't make too much difference: you could tell you they were almost at a glance. They waited patiently in a queue that snaked most of the way round the gorgeous, sub-gothic Brixton Academy, shivering not only with cold but with anticipation. London hadn't seen anything like it in... years? Not since last time the freakshow came to town. But this wasn't the Dead To The World tour. And no-one was quite sure what lay in store... So. Marilyn Manson. The reason we were here tonight. The passable but uninspiring 3 Colors Red provided support, doing their best for an audience who mostly just wanted their set wished away, and were gotten through as all opening acts must be gotten through, with a modicum of audience enthusiasm. The stage safely clear, there was a mounting sense of tension as Pink Floyd's classic rock opera 'The Wall' began to echo through the theater, teasing us into a fully justified sense of insecurity. The old tale of a rock star's rise fromm hurt, scared kid to megalomaniac, insane idol... what were we going to see tonight? We held our breath and watched and waited, half-listened until poor Pink reached the peak of his guitar-smashing, eyebrowless lunacy: and then... I knew it all already, thanks to my distant little family of spooks and freaks. Knew that I would hear an distorted metallic voice heralding our Omega's descent to join us, for one night and one night only: but when I heard it, faint above the roaring crowd, when I saw the band take to the stage, Twiggy glittering and crazy as I'd ever wished him, John 5 almost demure in the brief calm before the storm... when I saw Manson towering in silhouette, posturing and posing and all ready to grant audience... And then, he was there, stripped to the waist, arms sheathed in feathers, launching right into The Reflecting God. It was about the only song of the set I found sadly disappointing, maybe because it is one of my favorites: it was hard to make out Manson's voice, let alone the actual lyrics, above the music and the crowd. But I could make out the challenge, the song's savage refrain changed simply to 'Shoot/Shoot/Shoot Motherfucker...' There had been some concern voiced in the queue outside about the incongruity of seeing the band perform ACS material in Mechanical Animals guise. This first song, weak as it was, proved to me at least that there was none... although some of the audience would be far harder to convince... From Antichrist to Omega, with a seamless slide into Great Big White World. Any mixing problems seemed to have been ironed out, and this really marked the e start of the show, gorgeous and sensuous and crystal clear. I finally came down to earth enough to take a look at the lovely, stellar backdrop and the whitenoise whitelight TV screens that scattered the stage. This tour has seen Marilyn Manson at their most theatrical and technical, and this penultimate show was already looking good... The set was the same as at all the other shows, complete with the full stage show....oh, we got the down and dirty Cake and Sodomy, the glorious Mechanical Animals, our chosen leader crawling about the with stilts and crutches and helmet, alien and seemingly crippled and insectile (and anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I started to cry, and that I loved him best right there and then)... straight on into Posthuman, gorgeous and prophetic... We saw him writhe spastic as ever during Sweet Dreams, until the song creschendoed into a blackout frenzy of drums, and we barely noticed that he had even left the stage until the lights came up again and he was calming us and breaking our hearts by inches with the haunting Speed of Pain, as snow and glitter fell from an imagined sky... We thrilled to 'Omega and the Mechanical Animals' sleazing through the sequined bump-and-grind of 'Rock Is Dead' and 'The Dope Show', cheered at the customary speech before 'I Don't Like The Drugs...' ('The drugs, they say, are made right here in London...'), a song which was definitely one of the highlights of the show, pounding and insidious... I just had to dance... User Friendly saw Marilyn making out with the mike standing and getting up close and personal with the Brixton crowd, and Lunchbox was still as great an anthem for teenage revenge as ever before... They skidded to a climatic romp through Rock 'n' Roll Nigger before disappearing briefly in a frenzy of feedback and guitar abuse, only to return to a stage complete with the ACS podium and banners, Manson preaching to the converted, bible (which was duly shredded and scattered into the crowd) in hand for Antichrist Superstar. Repent, he screamed, as repent we did, as he pumped and primed us, teasing one moment, sacrificial the next, casting the jacket of his preacher suit aside to slump over the pulpit like a broken doll... The show closed with The Beautiful People, which was and had to be the high point of the night by general concensus, as savage and uniting as songs - even Marilyn Manson songs - come. How did it 'feel to be one of the beautiful people'? The audience went crazy... and it felt good... The song thundered to an end: and then, they were gone. It was a strangely flat goodbye, maybe because we could see the ACS flag waiting as backdrop, maybe because we'd read reviews and just expected a little more... The audience shouted and stomped for a while, but when the lights came up to Comfortably Numb, it was quite clear that they weren't coming back. We filed out into the cold London night stunned, but maybe just a little disappointed. Numb, but certainly not comfortable. It was a good show, a great show even, but somehow there was just... something... lacking. Maybe it was in the way the crowd seemed strangely unresponsive to the newer songs, while lapping up the ACS material, maybe it was just that it had been a long hard tour for the band. After all, the following night's show would be canceled due to Manson's ill health. The band were faultless: Twiggy providing a thumping bass while bouncing like Tigger on speed in a glitter dress that will have me jealous for years, Pogo playing to perfection and thrashing to near seizure all at the same time. John 5 played a mean and dirty guitar and proved himself a more than adequate replacement for Zim Zum (and far more entertaining: just watch that head go!), and Ginger seemed tighter and harder and even more impressive than ever before, marking himself out once again as one of the finest rock drummers of the decade. And Marilyn was as fine a frontman as ever, captivating and seductive and tantalizing, and finally showing that he can actually sing, and sing good... This tour has seen the band as a whole at the peak of their technical ability, with a fine-tuned sound that could not fail to impress: but maybe we just wanted it a little more ragged, more passionate. But still, I was happy, happy as hell, as I headed back to a hotel that Manson and Co. surely would have trashed gloriously if forced to stay in (no bar!), for an early morning and a long day ahead traveling to Deinze... but that's another story....

Reload and Repent