The first evil twin to take to the stage was Marilyn Manson and it’s fair to say that
Manson is one of the most controversial artists to come out of the 90’s. The self-proclaimed
‘Anti-Christ superstar’ sings about religion, politics and drugs amongst other
taboo topics. He’s built a formidable reputation for himself based around shock
factor, and his elaborate ‘grotesque burlesque’ stage theatrics.
Seeing him at the O2 arena a decade later, it seems
Manson has got a little soft and fuzzy around the edges – especially his waist
line! What was once shocking, and incited religious protestors outside his gigs
or had audience members turning away in disgust now seems slightly passé. Singing into a microphone rigged to look like
a knife, or scattering ‘cocaine’ over the audience at the front before launching
(predictably) into ‘The dope show’
and even the allusions to Nazism in ‘Anti-Christ
superstar’ failed to slay them in the aisles. However what we did see what a relatively stripped back, maturing performance, with less of the gruesome and sometimes distracting stage theatrics and more focus on the singing and performance. He still managed to move around the stage with bounds of energy and there were still one or two costume changes with fitting props.
Newer tracks such as ‘Slo-mo-tion’ seemed to get lost towards the back of the audience but the well-known favourites such as ‘mOBSCENE’ and ‘The Beautiful people’ got everyone fired up. I really enjoyed his set, but for such a big venue, and a man whose reputation precedes him; I doubt this performance lived up to everyone’s expectations.
The unmistakeable Rob Zombie completed the evil twin line up and he wasted no time taking charge of the stage, arriving on a huge robotic monstrous beast. It was evident that Zombie wanted to deliver a set straight from the fiery chasm of hell. What Manson’s set lacked in theatrics, Zombie’s more than made up for with fire, pentagrams, half naked women on overhead TV screens and huge robotic beasts – including a giant red devil.
Zombie really was a true showman; he completely immersed himself in each song and delivered all of them with an explosive energy. Not fearing his audience he asked for everyone to loudly shout for a “Motherfucking zombie party” and even climbed down from the stage to walk around the edges of the audience and let them maul at him in a suitably brain-hungry zombie fashion.
The audience were fully charged all through the set, and although security kept a tight lid on people crowd surfing or behaving too wildly, songs like ‘Super beast’ and ‘More human than human’ still packed a powerful punch which had everybody singing and head-banging along. For me, his encore of ‘Dragula’ was simply breath-taking and seeing several thousand people doing the metal salute of approval is an impressive sight!
Both acts held their own and brought two different
performance styles to the evening, in my opinion Zombie stole the show ever so
slightly. It was a fantastic gig though and great to see two giants of rock’n’shock
on the same bill. If you get the chance to see them, take it.
Eleanor
Knight
