Oct. 22, 1996 (12-E) "Horrible price to pay for fright lite bad music"

the band Marilyn Manson tried very hard to be as perverse and scary Saturday night at the Agora Theatre with monster makeup, Black-Mass stage set and songs of deviancy and degeneration.
But it didn't take too long to figure out that the heresy, naughty words and antisocial horror were just crutches propping up an unimaginative and mediocre heavy metal band The mediocrity hasn't stopped Marilyn Manson from becoming one of the hot commercial properties in modern rock. The band's new album, "Antichrist Suoerstar" is No. 3 on the billboard album charts, right behind Celine Dion and Kenny G. And its concert tour is a major sucess, drawing sellout crowds at theatres around the country, including the 1,800-seat Agora.
Lots of rock bands have gotten rich pandering to teenage audiences looking for new ways to shock their parents. But Marilyn Manson doesn't do the shock-rock thing with any particular style or originality. The ban's stage shtick is warmed-over Alice Cooper, with lead singer Marilyn Manson dressing up in a zombie costume and preforming on stage decked out like a satanic church (complete with "Phantom of the Opera" pipe organ and portraits of impaled angels).
There are haunted houses in the suburbs that are more frightening and interesting. The music was worse -- an unremarkable industrial-metal blend of AC/DC, Metallica, KMFDM and Nine Inch Nails without the hooks and grooves. (The band is signed to NIN frontman Trent Reznor's Cleveland based Bothing Records label.)
Things reached a high point of sorts midway through the concert, as manson climbed to the top of a podium, surrounded by flags bearing a swastikalike thunderbolt emblem. He led the crowd through a fist-pumping, Nuremburg-like sing-along that included renditions of the new "Antichrist Superstar" and "Beautiful People."
But the rest of teh show was a high-volume mishmash of thrash metal and neo-industrial junk. Most of the 15-song set was drawn from the new album, including "Angel with the Scabbed Wings." "1996," "Minute of Decay," "The Reflecting God," "Man that you Fear," "Dried up, Tied up, and Dead to the World," "Tourniquet," "Little Horn," amd "Cryptorchid."
The band played several cuts from its 1994 album, "Portrait of an American Family," including "Lunchbox," "Get your Gunn," "Misery Machine," and "Cake and Sodomy." Marilyn Manson also did its hit, house-of-horrors cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams [Are Made of This]."
A scary evening indeed.
But what's frightening is that almost 2,000 people paid $17.50 each to see it
Micheal Norman
Plain Dealer Music Critic
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