I’m going to cut to the chase on this one because it’s obviously a weird, volatile, timely subject.
I’ve been asked a ton since this show last week, “Is Manson back?”
It’s a complicated answer, but the short version of it is, “YES!”
I am a 90’s Manson fan that has seen him over fifteen times in the last 20+ years, and out of those times, I can tell you that before this show, there were only two times where I can say he was “on”, and put on a great show. Now I don’t say this to discourage you from checking him out, but much to the contrary actually, and to set the stage a bit, I’ve seen Manson fall off the stage more than once, I’ve seen him shove a woman’s hands down his pants, seen him forget lyrics, seen him take up ten minutes in between songs to change his wardrobe, and I’ve seen him arguing with his guitar player on stage to the point where they walked off, not to mention many other terrible instances over the years.
Nonetheless, the fifteen year old in me was always disappointed because after all, at the end of the day, our scene is losing icons left and right to either death or retirement and I truly thought with the most recent accusations against Manson, that I might never get to see him back in his true form.
I WAS WRONG.
This show was not sold out, but definitely had the energy of a sold out show. I knew that I was going to have a very limited amount of time to shoot Manson because he’s only allowing photographers to shoot the first song, and with that, we also had to wait until the stage cover was removed, so it was a bit of a mess at first, but luckily I was the only photographer there, so moving around wasn’t an issue and also allowed for me to get some truly iconic shots, but also allowed me enjoy the rest of the show!
Manson has always had a very unique stage presence, one that you either love or hate, and always had the ability to contort his body in interesting ways while continuing to “sing.” Something about this show as he powered through hit after hit with barely any stopping, backed by an energetic, loud, on point band was that he didn’t look bloated, didn’t look bored, didn’t look exhausted, and sounded better than I’ve heard him in a very long time, and the show went on, he seemingly got better.
By the time he hit “mOBSCENE”, nine songs in, he was on fire and his energy level was feeding off the crowd that was giving him everything and singing along song after song through the “The Beautiful People”, 15 songs in. While I think ending on “The Reflecting God” and “Coma White” were odd choices, this was by far the best I’ve seen Manson in a very long time. Politics aside, I would recommend anyone wanting to see a better Manson show, go out and catch him!
