MARILYN MANSON played his “first and only” acoustic show in front of 350 invited guests at SACI nightclub in MANHATTAN last night (November 14).
The set was brief, comprising only four songs, including a cover of John Lennon’s ‘Working Class Hero’, played by Manson with a four-man backing band – John5 on guitar, MW Gacy on keyboard, drummer Ginger Fish and bassist Twiggy Ramirez.
Dressed down in leather trousers and a long-sleeved transparent black blouse, he opened the set with ‘Godeatgod’, first track from his new album ‘Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death)’.
He spoke only briefly, introducing ‘Working Class Hero’ with: “Thank you all for coming tonight. This is my favourite John Lennon song.” Manson’s cover had a sinister edge, drawing out the word “fear” and screaming “all the fucking peasants”.
The third song was another cover, ‘Suicide Is Painless’ (the theme from ‘M.A.S.H’, which Manson covered on the ‘Blair Witch II’ soundtrack), which he described as “more depressing and offensive than anything I’ve ever written”.
‘Count To Six And Die’, final song on ‘Holy Wood’, was the set-closer. A playback of the album, which is released this week, followed.
Despite a howling reception when he appeared on stage in the cathedral-like venue, there was a rather disappointed reaction afterwards from the few fans who had won tickets or queued outside record stores to be in the audience, which mainly comprised record industry personnel.
One commented that ‘Godeatgod’ “sounds like Peter Murphy”, while another, 20-year-old Mike Greenfield described it as: “Kind of anti-climactic. It’s cool, but he wasn’t into it so much. I waited outside for eight hours to get tickets to this. Some people I know stayed up for 33 hours. I mean, for four songs – that’s not cool.”