For a guy who prides himself on shocking the world -- or at least scaring parents once in a while -- Marilyn Manson had something more surprising and ambitious on his diabolical mind Friday night at Myth nightclub in Maplewood: He wanted to rock the roof off the place.
Manson got back together with his old bassist and main songwriting collaborator Twiggy Ramirez before his current tour, and the reunion might have prompted him to focus more on the music than The Show. With 4,400 fans packed like pale-colored sardines into the sold-out mega-club, plus a similarly thick sound system, Myth proved to be a fine location for this particular muscle-over-meddle metal concert.
Oh sure, Manson pulled a few shock-value tricks out of his ripped-fishnet sleeves during the 90-minute set. He came out singing the opener "Cruci-Fiction in Space" with a microphone shaped into a butcher's blade. Then there was the old Bible-burning trick during "Antichrist Superstar."
Manson also talked up his bad-boy walk, like when he asked if he was in Minneapolis or St. Paul. "Good," he said, hearing more St. Paul responses, "because I'm a registered sex offender in Minneapolis."
The night's most grandiose gimmick -- ripping the head off a robotic mannequin that looked like a real woman -- was taken straight out of the "Alice Cooper's Shock Rock 101" guidebook.
Mostly, though, Manson avoided his usual playing-makeup/wearing-guitars approach and impressed fans with sheer musical energy. During the second song, "Disposable Teens," the club's main-floor area swished, swayed and crashed like a wave pool at a local water park. By the time he tore out "The Beautiful People" for the second encore, the mostly under-25 crowd looked worn-out ugly.
The musical highlights came more in the middle. Both "mOBSCENE" and "Love Song" roared with thrash power. His usual gloomy cover of the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" also hit especially hard, and he paired it beautifully with a frantic, bombastic cover of Patti Smith's "Rock & Roll Nigger." The punk-rock classic about being a slave to rock's pageantry took on new meaning in Manson's fake-blood-soaked hands.
Without Manson's pageantry to hide behind, though, several more tepid songs showed their true colors -- or lack thereof. The Bowie-copping "Coma White/Coma Black" sounded drab and melodramatic, and "If I Was Your Vampire" came off like a one-note Bauhaus ripoff. But just the fact that they could be judged on musical merit and nothing more said something about the concert.
