Tonight we are treated to a classic Marilyn Manson band lineup with the heroes of his hey day Gingerfish on drums, Twiggy Ramirez on guitar, Chris Vrenna (of Nine Inch Nails fame) on keyboards and percussion together with newcomer Andy Gerold of Ashes Divide rounding out the group on Bass. The skill of Gigerfish and Twiggy playing a body of tracks they were instrumental in shaping can not be toped.

The great thing about the show is seeing an artist dedicated to the performance as well as the music. With Disposable Teens the chants of, “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,” reverberate through the walls and the seething mass below begins pumping fists in the air. As new track Pretty as a Swastika dollar signs spin to form the Nazi symbol on the walls. Manson changes costume every second song from top hats and hoodies to a pimp outfit as a snowstorm of sparkling confetti falls over the stage. He also uses various lighting techniques, smoke machines and strobes. Whilst this often adds effect, in particular the ghostly lights from below that illuminate his face and the flood lights that show the roaring crowd, they seem to go overboard on the smoke and strobe so much so that when Manson walks slightly towards the back we can no longer see what is happening.

The best and most sobering speech from Manson comes with the introduction to The Love Song when he drapes himself in and Australian flag and Nazi helmet and tells us that a lot of people hate each other for stupid reasons like politics, religion and race but, ”...we need to hate people just because we hate them.” This rings surprisingly apt going by the audience. Sure the majority are adorned in black but look a little closer and you see just how diverse they are: fat, skinny, white, Asian, male, female, even a girl in an electric wheelchair with breathing apparatus. Oddly in this least judgemental of scenes it is the only concert I’ve been to where they frisk you on entry.

In the pit the crowd surfers come out to play and at one point Manson stops to reprimand security for mistreating a girl, “Don’t hurt girls, I’m the one who hurts girls,” he states before pulling said girl on to stage for a hug. The weakest moments in the show are those in which Manson attempts to draw on his waning notoriety, using a bottle to pretend to ejaculate just seems like a thirteen year old boys lame idea of a joke. The controversy that he once fed on is now gone and Manson seems more and more unsure of how to position himself without its protective coat. He seems all too often to fall back on the lacklustre technique of shouting the name of the city at the crowd. “MELBOURNE!” Yes? What? Tell us what you want Marilyn?

It is not the biggest hits set we might of hoped for but there are enough highlights to satiate the taste buds. These include The Dope Show and his superbly twisted version of the Eurythmics Sweet Dreams. Closing the set with Rock ‘n’ Roll Nigger the band return for a disappointingly short two song encore of the admittedly great Tourniquet and The Beautiful People with Gingerfish’s manic driving drum rolls and air cannons firing paper over the crowd as the lights come up.

Although I enjoyed myself and the miniscule one hour fifteen performance was mostly impressive it’s hard not to be left with the feeling that perhaps Manson really is getting a little too old for this shit.

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS FROM THE GIG HERE