The latest two Marilyn Manson gigs in Copenhagen had been really lousy. Both happened in 2012, one of them at the Copenhell Festival and the other at Valby-Hallen. We - the fans - had to ask ourselves if he was really worth the ticket price any longer?
The newest album "The Pale Emperor" [2015] has been really well received by the reviewers, while the 3 albums before it took some beatings. I disagree with most of this, because I've liked every album from Manson, and I find that "Eat Me, Drink Me" [2007], "The High End Of Low" [2009], "Born Villain" [2012] are just as great - and some of them even better than the newest output.
But newer mind all that. Manson was back in Copenhagen's 1500 capacity Vega venue, where he last played way back in 1996. The crowd in the sold out venue were excited to see, if he had gotten his shit together and could deliver a good live performance, like he used to be able to. Manson seemed to be somewhat drunk or high, but he was also very intense and into it. The man clearly can't sing much any longer (if he ever could), but it didn't really matter that much. There was a lot of energy and it seemed much more live this time, instead of the backtracks he sometimes has relied on too much.
The band was tight and featured Twiggy Ramirez on bass. The show was rather minimalistic and most of the old overused props and gimmicks were gone. Hooray for that! It's been my hope for a long time that he would "go garage" and find some nerve and rock'n'roll again. That plan worked. On the bad side he took some long breaks after almost every single song, as if he needed more dope or air backstage. The show lasted 1h30, but if you subtract the breaks it only lasted an hour.
The new songs "Deep Six" and "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge" and "No Reflection" from the previous album were really great, and I wish he had dropped the two cover songs and had added a few more of the newer songs instead. "Tourniquet" was another highlight for me. They really played an awesome version of this song. Of course the last song of the evening "Coma White" is always a very welcome classic.
I won't say the good old Manson is back. "Mechanical Animals" is still by far the best Manson show, I've ever seen. But this Vega show on "The Hell Not Hallelujah" tour was way better than his last 2 gigs in Denmark, and Marilyn Manson gave us fans a great reason to be there again the next time he comes around.
Rating: 
Band: Marilyn Manson
Venue: Vega, Copenhagen, DK
Concert Date: 2015-06-08
Support Band: Pop Evil
Setlist:
Intro, Deep Six, Disposable Teens, mOBSCENE, No Reflection, Third Day of a Seven Day Binge, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) [Eurythmics cover], Angel With the Scabbed Wings, Tourniquet, Rock Is Dead, The Dope Show, Lunchbox, Cruci-Fiction in Space, Personal Jesus [Depeche Mode cover], The Beautiful People.
Encore:
Coma White.
*Irresponsible Hate Anthem was printed on the setlist but not performed.
Ticket Price (DKK): 370
Ticket Provider: Billetnet
Content Type: Concert Review
Language: 
Updated: 2015-07-10 22:00
Created: 2015-06-09 19:54
