Marilyn Manson’s been having a rough time at the moment.

Marilyn Manson’s been having a rough time at the moment. His latest album was a pale imitations of the man’s best moments padded out with filler, whilst the first batch of gigs to support The High End Of Low saw Manson forgetting lyrics, lolling around onstage and seemingly not giving a care for the audience who paid good money to see the self-proclaimed ‘God Of Fuck’.

Subsequently, his record label decided to drop him from their roster citing ‘low sales’. Things do not look good.

Tonight’s gig is the first in the UK leg of the High End Of Low tour, and if the queue stretching around the venue is anything to go by the fans have not been put off by Manson’s troubles. Once inside the venue it becomes fully apparent that whilst Manson may have lost his major label backing, he certainly has retained his loyal fan base, the atmosphere is immense.

But can Manson pull his finger out and pull off the type of performance that made him such a fierce and intellectual performer back in the mid nineties?

The answer is both yes and no. The set opens with Crucifixion in Space Manson emerging from dry ice so thick that even The Sisters Of Mercy would find a bit too much. With lasers fixed to his fingers, Manson emerged through the murk to deliver a punishing vocal that didn’t let up until the very end of the set. It seems the man is back.

Older tracks such as Dried Up, Tied Up And Dead To The World rub shoulders with tracks from the last two critically maligned albums and sound much better than their album counterparts. If I Were Your Vampire is absolutely stunning live, much more intense – Manson stalking the stage like a man possessed.

So, the music and stage presence is back on form. The problem lies with the banter. Marilyn Manson used to be fiercely intelligent and would tackle all forms of jock style bullying and authoritarianism onstage. Tonight that’s gone and replaced by Manson picking on an audience member on the balcony who looks miserable.

Fair enough that you would like to see a happy face at a gig, but maybe the woman was ill. Maybe her car was robbed whilst spending the day here, maybe she bought her boyfriend a ticket and was a chaperone. Manson had no reason to know why she didn’t look happy, and so it felt quite sad that he taunted her for possibly being deaf or a retard, before getting the whole audience below to turn and face her to boo her. This is the kind of jock-style bullying that a previous Manson would’ve intellectually ran into the ground. It’s sad to see that Manson has converted into the thing he so strongly rallied against.

However, with time this may change. He’s certainly got his act together on the music/performance front. Maybe he’ll get some perspective back on his attitude, and then he’ll truly be back on top of his game.

Christopher Lloyd.

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