Well, us folks from the planetcom spookhouse (a/k/a Maryland Mansion in Spook City USA) made it up to New York for the New Year's Evil show at the Academy. Got in line about 3 o'clock & were delighted by the special guest appearance of our lil' bro Shlee who'd taken the bus from TEXAS for the show!! Luckily it was't as cold as Cleveland so we didn't mind waiting the hours until we got in. Got to watch the band all slowly emerge - Ginger was the first, incognito with a cap over his head and a long leather coat, doing a weird little sideways shuffle acrross the street, looking like just another New York weirdo... A while later the rest of the band came down the street and walked right by the line - very few even recognized them, they've obviously studied "how not to be seen".

While in line Daisy started taking pix of us from the 3rd floor window & somebody started tossing deli meat slices at us from the dressing room... A gal next to Angelynx caught one and couldn't decide whether to eat it or keep it as a souvenir. Also found Rooster, his brother & some of his friends, as well as a TON of other folks we'd met at other Manson shows.

Got inside & took our usual spots right in front of the cube - spotted Ratchet with gal handing out flyers who turned out to be the mysterious Mother Inferior herself!!

Lunachicks were cool, very fun to watch... I can't say their music made much of an impression on me but they are entertaining and I think go well with Manson (and I'm just so relieved I don't have to sit thru Clutch anymore!!)

After the christian children's chorus tape they started again with Diamanda's Sono Antichristo... I looked up to the left & spotted a very familiar face in the box to the right of the stage - Mr. Reznor (along with a hunch of other folks including the singer of Hanzel Und Gretyl). Unfortunately so did a lot of other folks that started screaming "Trent" so he ducked out for a bit tho I'm told he came back to watch the Manson show (my eyes were glued elsewhere)

The lights dimmed... the Hands of Small Children echoed & The mansons appeared with a thunderous version of "Get Your Gunn". The Reverend was again wearing the tattered fur coat and stripped it off to show off hot pink opera gloves trimmed in feathers and "unsafe" scrawled on his stomach.

Their pace was fast and furious... only one new song, "Irresponsible Hate Anthem" and for encores they first did "Rock and Roll Nigger" followed by a reappearance to do "Sweet Dreams" and "Misery Machine". I was very disturbed tho by what happened when they were leaving the stage - Daisy had bent over to adjust something and Manson pushed him hard from behind - Daisy toppled over and got caught on the light in front of him, tried to regain his balance but failed and fell head first off the rather high stage where he was luckily caught by two bouncers tho he landed at a weird angle so I'm sure he was very sore. If I'd been two feet closer I probably would have caught him. I am just very much afraid that they will soon be auditioning for a new guitarist.

After the show us list folks decided to go out and hunt for a nice quiet place to have coffee and chat and avoid the madness fast approaching as the Academy was a block away from Times Square, a/k/a "Ground Zero" where fifty billion people wanted to watch the ball drop. (Sorry, not the ball I wanted to see drop that night...) So we purposely walked away from the area and had to work through the crowds... passed one VERY drunken gal in a Manson shirt going towards the Acadamy who saw our shirts and asked where the show was... I told her it was already over (it ended before 11:00) and she kept telling me"get the fuck outta here" so I told her to look at the tickets that said 8:00!! Well, she and her friend sure wasted $60 on tix for their stupidity!

Found a nice little restauranat and commandeered the back corner where we munched on chicken gyros and the most amazing chocolate hazelnut cake I've ever experienced. Even tho the restarant was closing they let us sit there for a very long time - I thing the staff there was glad to have a nice group of happy and relatively quiet folks ordering a lot of food than deal with the crazy drunks that by now had ENTIRELY filled the streets. I was never so happy to be inside looking out - the streets were PACKED and lots of folks kept POUNDING on the doors wanting to me let in - I felt like I was in one of those apocalyptic movies like "the Omega Man" or something and we were the last people alive and the streets were full of ravaging zombies. It was just a very weird moment!

But truthfully, as midnight struck and we entered the year of AntiChrist Superstar I think we all spent it in the best way possible amongst our family, sober enuff to remember it all!

- EVB