The
Toronto Sunday Sun
Nudie girls.
Snot.
Middle fingers in the air. You can bet the ushers at the Hummingbird
Centre don't see a show like this every night. "Everything has been
said before," sang Marilyn Manson during his opening number, The
New S***. "Let us entertain you!" And so the shock rocker brought
his new album, The Golden Age of Grotesque, to life with a macabre
moulin rouge spectacle that was less ranting, more rocking. Manson specializes
in shocking the easily offended with anti-authoritarian messages and
creepy visuals. But his new disc shows he's more into Berlin-style vaudeville
and burlesque lately.
So
the 90-minute performance was heavy on theatrical shadows, camp and
titilation. Most of that came courtesy of a pair of two flexible, scantily-clad
"dancers," who appeared in military chic, as makeshift siamese twins
and in garters with nude-coloured bikinis which might have made them
look naked to the back of the room, but were all an illusion. A lesser
performer would have been upstaged by the girls, but Manson is an excellent
showman, a veteran ringleader. He's come a long way from his first Toronto
show in 1996, when he took Polaroid photos of his crotch then tossed
them into the crowd at Molson Park. Last night, he commanded attention
with nothing more than his funny faces, silly John Cleese-style military
march and a set of fun, heavy songs like Disposable Teens and
Use Your Fist and Not Your Mouth. "I'm not even going to waste
breath talking about religion or politics tonight," he said, before
launching into a spirited version of Rock is Dead. The show featured
a half-dozen different stage setups, various props and costumes, hastily
assembled in a few seconds of black between songs. At one point, Manson
rose to the ceiling a on a black pedestal, later he donned fake arm
extensions. For The Golden Age of Grotesque, Manson wedged his
microphone between the butt cheeks of on of his dancers, then sang out
of it. Pretty tame for a guy who has been known to expose himself on
stage, actually. Just when it seemed Manson's show would be all fun
and no fury, he appeared in blackface and Mickey Mouse ears, accompanied
by a giant inflatable version of same, for his hit The Beautiful People.
Certainly, this statement is giving the Disney family nightmares.
Nice
to see that after all these years, even a playful Marilyn Manson can
still be a creep.
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