A Bang, Not A Whimper: A Marilyn Manson Concert Review
So here we are-Marilyn Manson,the most vilified rock star/group in recent memory-in the South, local politicians go to great lengths to cancel impending concerts, one town even sponsoring an ordinance to ban him from the premises. Is MM really the pied piper for all things malevolent?
No, but he and his bandmates put on a helluva show. A concert of this magnitude is truly a cathartic experience... once in awhile, it's fun to feel complete joy and abandonment at something eccentric, trivial, or insulting to the proper world, to indulge in a Beavis & Butthead moment, such as "He's on a cross..and its.made of TV sets!. Look at.that mosquito outfit - it's so cool.". Costume changes in abundance,glitter, lights, fireworks, and fierce, non-stop riffs-you name it, our boy had it Although I spent half the show obsessed with the rumor that lip syncing was a definite possibility and that Brian-er-Marilyn isn't actually singing. But even if that's true, his raison d'e tre is as a performer, not as an accomplished musician. And though his music is rarely discussed in the general media, (why talk about music when you can interview the latest protesting politician/religiouso and get a good sound bite for the ten o clock news?) the Mechanical Animals CD has some fantastic songs on it including one anti-drug song Coma White that actually made me cry, and the now-infamous I Dont Like The Drugs.(But The Drugs Like Me) Of course we have to see his butt every time. Does anybody really want to see this more than once? Keyboards were roughed up-but no chickens were harmed during this performance.
Not to say that Marilyn, Twiggy, et al. are Boy Scouts. A droll,smartass comment such as,. "In my world, Special K is a breakfast cereal. I will not be hanging out with the band", may be inserted here; however, these guys are way too smart to provide obituary fodder or write for the Betty Ford Clinic Newsletter anytime soon.
"Paging Satan. Satan, pick up the white courtesy telephone in the lobby". Paging Satan Satan was not in attendance at this event. Maybe it was a slow night.. or maybe I don't have the observational gifts of a rural Mississippi preacher. Maybe I just thought it was a great show. And where are the evil, disenfranchised youth? Don't seem much different to me than when I was a kid, just a bunch of polite
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