I saw Manson's penis way too many times tonight.

But the show. The show was very very good.

we got there very early and scanned the line that contained roughly 15 people at that point, looking for Erika or other list faces. No luck, so we walked down the street to a greasy place and ate overpriced food. We never did find Erika, BTW (this is the third show that she has eluded us), and neither did Jeff Davis, to our knowledge... Erika, did you make it there okay?

By the time we came back the line was about 4 times as long, so after standing by the buses for a minute, we got in line. We waited. Then, since we were right next to a door, we heard the soundcheck. Disassociative, Speed of Pain, and Fundamentally Loathsome. Disassociative and FL were not played during the show, unfortunately, but... goddamn did they sound great at soundcheck. And I got to hear FL live, which was wonderful. here's to hoping they add both of them to the regular setlist soon...

So

We waited.

We waited for a long time. That's our fault, though, because we got there so early. Unfortunately, we didn't have any other list kids to talk to, so we had to listen to the loud+dumb people behind us. We were also offered mushrooms and opium by some guy. That was a first. I've never been offered opium before.

Protestors were non-existant, but the State Theatre would be an awkward place for a protest, anyway. There was some guy from a local church walking around handing out little american flag toothpicks and asking for everyone's money, but that wasn't quite a protest.

Eventually, we head inside, and who's standing there but Kurt Loder! He (and I think Tabitha Soren as well) were interviewing seemingly random idiots for mtv. I hope they weren't all as dumb as some of them were. A certain group took idiotic delight in repeatedly yeling "KURT LODER IS SATAN!," and someone, much to the amusement of eigch and I, actually yelled out "SATAN ROOLZ." Ah, well.

I did not buy a shirt. This is the first show of any kind that I went to and didn't buy a shirt. I just didn't like them enough to spend so much for them. This ends up being a plus, though, because I didn't have to wear two shirts through the show. I'll wait until later in the tour and see if they have better shirts. I like the dark grey glittery shock symbol one (without the circle around it), but they weren't selling it.

When we got to the floor, we took a place on twiggyside, about three people from the barrier. Soon, I noticed that the person on the barrier to my left was wearing a Dayton shirt. After a bit of puzzling between andy and I about who it might be, andy was brave and asked him (we're both shy bastards, though I am more of a shy bastard than he is), and it was Jeff Davis. So Jeff has the honor(?) of being the very first list kid who I have ever met in person in the 3 years + since I joined. Lucky Jeff. We talked a bit before the show, and during the break between sets. Jeff is good. We like Jeff.

So anyway, after Freebird played over the PA 6 freaking times in a row (I have a feeling this is Twiggy's doing), 12 Rounds came out... I'd previously only heard a couple of mp3s of them, but I thought they were quite good, and they played just short enough of a set so that they didn't get boring considering that I didn't know any of their songs. Jeff and the singer spent a lot of time communicating to each other via the horned hand. I don't think they were too thrilled about the general crowd response, though. "We're 12 rounds and you've been great."

So then The Wall begins to play. I have to say that this is my personal all-time favorite between-set music choice, because I love the album so much that I don't mind listening to the whole thing. It even makes the time pass faster. So, during the middle of Nobody Home, the lights went down...

I was worried before about how they'd manage to open the show with Reflecting God. Wow. I should not have been worried. It was, in a word, incredible. Right now, I like this show-starter even better than the last tour's. The TVs are the best part of the whole set. I was also worried that I'd think manson's costumes were silly. They were not silly, at least not in a bad way. I thought he looked great, and so did the rest of the band, for that matter. TRG was satisfyingly thunderous, with great use of strobes at the end... I got eye contact a couple of times during this song, but not really any more after that...

At this point I guess it would help to type a setlist. You'll have to excuse me, because I don't remember the exact order that the songs were played in, but I believe it was something like the following. Jeff or andy or whoever can correct me if something is out of place:

TRG
White World
Posthuman
Cake and Sodomy
Mechanical Animals
Lunchbox
Speed of Pain
Rock is Dead
Sweet Dreams
Dope Show
User Friendly
Don't Like the Drugs
Rock 'n' Roll Nigger
ACS
TBP
IHA


John 5 is good. John 5 is very very good. He plays Daisy's songs like Daisy did. He plays everything exactly how it's meant to sound, except TBP, which he does with his own style. I hope he can write, because he is one damn good guitar player. Cake and Sodomy and Lunchbox sounded absolutely perfect. It makes me glad that they were in the set, because I got to hear John play them. Pogo also played some additional drums during C&S, which was a nice surprise.

Major emotion happened during the song MA. I just stood here wide-eyed trough most of it, especially "this isn't me, I'm not mechanical." The stilts are good. I was worried about them feeling just rehashed, but they didn't.

Speed of Pain was kind of a letdown. It needs a little work live, because it doesn't quite capture the emotion of the album track. It was still good, though.

Manson rubbed himelf a lot. His crotch, ass, even his asshole. I also saw his unmentionables several times, since he was in the habit tonight of pulling his blue thong down by shoving his hand into it. He also Put the microphone down his pants at one point (Cake and Sodomy?), and when he took it out, his penis sort of flopped out with it. He quickly tucked it back in, though, because (I assume) it was accidental. It was actually kind of surprising that he got away with so much. Has he been doing all of this at other dates? One intelligent person spent a lot of time screaming that manson was "a fucking faggot" and "gay" because he rubbed himself. Apparently you are homosexual if you touch your own penis. Then again, he might have been calling manson "~gEy~".

Unfortunately, I missed parts of the show due to an asshole who spent the show trying to usurp peoples' spots. It took him a long time and a lot of dirty tactics, but he eventually wedged himself between Eigch and I. Then he singled out a girl on the barrier who was about 5' tall and actually started hitting her in the back of the head (!), at which point a security guard thankfully dove at him, grabbed him by the mouth, and screamed in his face. Rarely have I seen such terror on someone's face, and it looked good on him. He was an asshole.

It disn't quite stop him, though, because when Jeff was pulled out by security (I didn't see why - Jeff? Was there any particular reason, or were you just being smashed too much? I hope I didn't contribute too much to that...), he tried to wedge his way into the spot. I had ahold of the barrier, but he tried to pry my hand off. I wasn't even trying for the spot, just holding myself steady, but I refused to let go, just to spite him... I also took uncharacteristic pleasure in causing him pain by shoving elbows and knuckles into his ribs at every opportunity. He deserved it, and in the end he gave more pain to people than he got.
Anyway...

There were the usual altered words during User Friendly (I'm not in love, but I'm gonna fuck you... in your mouth... and in your ass... I'm not in love, but I'm gonna something something make you suck my dick)

Call me crazy But I could have sworn that I saw TWIGGY90210 on someone's shoulders with her top off during User Friendly. Was that you, twiggy?

There was also the usual corny drugs speech before Don't like the drugs... does anyone else besides me and Eigch think that Manson must laugh his ass off everytime thousands of people cheer just because he says the names of drugs? Stupid people.

Rock 'n' Roll Nigger was performed really, really well. Even better than last May when they played it in Saginaw... Pogo took this opportunity to smash his keyboard into millions of pieces. It was really quite impressive. In fact, Pogo spent the whole show screaming at people who weren't actually there. Pogo is entertaining.

Eigch and I cut out of there for ACS and TBP, because we needed water very badly. We got our water and watched as well as we could from the bar area, and then when we realized that we could not watch very well at all, we went back to the floor in time to see IHA... it was good, but it didn't get finished. About halfway through, Manson banged the micstand around, tore down the drums, and walked offstage. twiggy and pogo caused some damage of their own before following him. I don't think anything in particular happened to piss Manson off, though. I just think he decided that the show was over.

But, even though the end was a bit anticlimactic... it was, overall, a damn good show. I can't wait to see them again after February, and I hope they've added a few songs *coughlastdayonearthcoughcomawhitecoughfundamentallyloathsomecough* by then.

We looked a bit for Jeff and Erika after the show, but we did not find them. We were going to try and stick around on the chance that someone would emerge from backstage for a moment, but we were tired, so we just went home.

And

I'm going to stop there even though I probably have more to say. I need to sleep.

that's all
Love,
~jason~