Hello again! Got to catch another great show yesterday up in Philadelphia at the TLA on South Street. My roommate coyote and I set off early hoping to land up a chance to meet them. Well, no such luck as we got stuck in traffic & got there after the band had already gone in for a soundcheck & they didn't appear otherwise before the show, so we missed 'em. And afterwards the Philly cops were jerks & cleared everybody away from the venue so we left figuring a) it wouldn't be cool to hang around & get hasseled and b) we had a 3 hr drive back home.

So, no chance to give them the special "Marilyn Manson" lunchbox that coyote created but hopefully we'll be able to in the future as I think they'll really dig it. It came out great - she took an old metal one (gotta be metal) & spray painted it black and on the back painted the "MM" logo in big drippy green letters in a combination of day glo paint & emerald green glitter. On the front is the group photo from the inside of the "Portrait" CD (the one with Mr. Manson in the shopping cart) & she even painted in all the details on Mr. M's tats & Twiggy's awful shirt... The thermos is black with the "Satanic Army" logo on it. I've taken some pix of it so if anybody wants to see it I can send 'em out when I get the roll finished & developed or if Ned wants to add 'em to the MM page I'd be glad to send them to him to scan since I can't do that myself!

Still, we got there way early & were among the first in line and I ended up spending much of the evening chatting with a cute fellow named Jeff who's nearly as bad with MM as I am with Danzig & follows MM all around - this was his 13th show. He'd 1st seem them several years back in Florida when he was visiting some friends and they'd said "you absolutely HAVE to check out this local band" and had been a big fan since, though he's still kicking himself big time for not picking up their demo tape then or their early T shirt (two large M's one on top the other; the top one containing a photo of Marilyn's eyes & the bottom with Charlie's eyes - if anybody has one to sell please let me know so I can pass it on to him!). We exchanged addies to do some tape trading (poor fellow missed the Donahue show!)

One of the funniest things about waiting in line was that of the folks walking by you could TELL which older folks had seen "Donahue" & would point at the crowd to say "they're going to see THAT band!" Funny to watch their eyes tracking the crowd.

But anyway, the show was amazing, better than the first one I'd seen. Monster Voodoo Machine opened (again, I'd also seen 'em in DC) & I really enjoyed their set. They were having a bad night tho as their bassist had just come down with chicken pox and had gotten shipped home & their cute blonde roadie with the interesting septum piece filled in for him. I've never seen a band throw so much free shit into the crowd - I'd hate to think how many cassettes & stickers they give away on a tour!

MM did an even better show than they'd done here in DC at the 9:30 altho it was the same set (with "Cake and Sodomy" and "Misery Machine" as encores) They also had a lot more trappings on the stage than in DC (since the 9:30 has a TINY stage) & since there was a barrier here at the TLA & a few feet between the crowd & the stage there wasn't the stage diving problem.

Anyway, they were brilliant. And now I'm dying to see them again!! I know they are supposed to be opening for Danzig on the west coast but I'm praying that they'll be opening for the whole tour. I've got all the Danzig dates & am hoping to travel to a bunch of those - if my TWO fav bands end up touring together I'll probably try to make it to a dozen or so. (Yeah, I'm just a modern day gypsy!)--- EVB