Rolling Stone Germany Reviews Marilyn Manson's Return To Berlin

 

Marilyn Manson in Berlin: 

In a Dark World of Show, Hate and Pain

After an abuse scandal, Marilyn Manson had withdrawn from the public eye. Now he is back in Berlin for the first time in seven years. He has brought a clear message with him to the sold-out Columbiahalle.

By Dennis Sand
February 17, 2025

Last week, the self-proclaimed Antichrist landed in a world that corresponds to him, or at least his philosophy, in a frightening way. The day on which Marilyn Manson performs on German soil for the first time in seven long years is the day on which the most powerful of the powerful renounce the old world order and two people lose their lives in a terrorist attack, all just a few kilometers away from the Zenith in Munich, where Manson celebrated his comeback on Thursday for, well, you could say, his comeback. Marilyn Manson is on tour again and he travels a world that continues to be in rapid decay with its moral, cultural and civil abysses. A decay that has always been reflected in the fictional character Marilyn Manson created by Brian Warner and his work.

But something is different in February 2025, because this time it is not only the outer world that lies in ruins, but also to a large extent his own. In 2021, massive allegations were made against Manson, which have not really been dispelled to this day, even though they have now been legally dismissed. Allegations of abuse and rape were made against Manson, which he had sharply denied, but nevertheless led to his label and management throwing him out the door and Manson withdrawing completely from the public eye for years. Now he's back, with a new record in his luggage and an almost completely sold-out European tour behind him. After his concert in Munich, Berlin is now on the agenda.

Marilyn Manson – the Complete Concert:

There is still snow on the streets and in front of the completely sold-out Columbiahalle, a female Manson lookalike fangirl collapses, who does not have a valid ticket and is not allowed into the hall. In the hall, on the other hand, old metalheads with Metallica jackets, dressed-up scene girls, millennial nostalgics, fetish people and one or the other lost soul have gathered. The question that arises this evening is which Marilyn Manson will Brian Warner present to us today. The insightful, mature artist who reflects on himself and his past or the me-against-the-rest-of-the-world Manson. Well, maybe only the author of these lines is asking the question, because the far greater part of the crowd cheers Manson frenetically onto the stage, come what may.

"They Tried To Take Me Away From You"

The curtain falls at 9 p.m. sharp and Manson stands on stage with his partly newly formed band to answer the question in the first few seconds. He begins his set defiantly with "Nod If You Understand": "No reason to ask forgiveness / Pain is the language that was spoken to me / And now it's my time to answer." A song that represents his entire last album, "One Assassination Under God", which is a sharp response to the accusations that Manson was exposed to.

The eponymous assassination, which was committed under God's eyes, is logical, the assassination of his reputation, he stylizes himself as the victim of a large-scale campaign against him. Accordingly, he greets the audience in Berlin with a fraternization: "They tried to take me away from you, they tried to take you away from me," complains Manson. “But they failed,” he says defiantly and apparently quite correctly, before moving on to “Disposable Teens” and diving completely into a dark world of show, hate and pain.

One Assassination under God:

By the time of the hypnotic "Tourniquet" he has the audience completely under his spell, there is no longer any distance between the artist and the crowd in the Columbiahalle, Marilyn Manson is now fully himself. And his audience is with him. That is not something to be taken for granted on this evening either. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, Manson was an authority, a dark prophet of rock n' roll who underpinned his abyssal nature with impressive philosophical depth. The social, political and human abysses were the artistic essence of his work, but at some point the story of a morally corrupt conservative America was told to its full extent. Later on his once sincere anger at the hypocritical entertainment system degenerated into a pose, because he himself had long since become a profiteer of exactly that system.

Not long after "The Golden Age Of Grotesque" (2003), in which Manson had progressed from a circus-grotesque to a fascist-exaggerated aesthetic, he had also reached an end creatively. The shock rocker had exhausted all effects, drawn every image, illuminated every abyss, the narrative had come to an end. From this point on, Manson was a seeker who could no longer find his role. At times he tried a bluesy approach, almost bowiesque on "The Pale Emperor" (2015), then experimentally reduced on "We Are Chaos" (2020), but became more streamlined from album to album. During this phase, six good, some really very good albums were created, but they no longer corresponded to the principle of artistic destruction in order to still function in the world of Marilyn Manson.

This is the New Shit:

Accordingly, Manson completely ignores this phase of his work between 2007 and 2024 in Berlin. He only plays songs from the golden era between "Antichrist Superstar" (1996) and "The Golden Age Of Grotesque" (2003) and puts six of his new songs alongside them. The show that Manson delivers is fantastic. Manson, now clean, is so good, so physically present, that he no longer has to hide behind show/shock effects and costumes; his pure physical presence carries the entire evening. The stage design consists only of a few upside-down luminous crosses and some artificial fog. Manson stretches, gesticulates wildly, makes faces, screams, yells, roars, sings with the aura of a dark priest, captures the audience who celebrate him euphorically, lets them go again, brings them back. During “This is the New Shit” and “mOBSCENE” the audience is sometimes louder than the band, which plays brutally with guitarist Reba Meyers from Code Orange and Manson’s performance creates an oppressive, at times insane soundscape.

And Suddenly the Line Between Art and Reality Becomes Blurred

When he starts his interpretation of “Sweet Dreams” towards the end of the evening, the bass of ex-Rob Zombie band member Piggy D pushes you against the wall, it is initially no longer possible to distinguish whether he or the audience is singing the piece, only when he screams the lines “Some of them want to use you / Some of them want to get used by you / Some of them want to abuse you / Some of them want to be abused” from the bottom of his soul into his microphone towards the end does he dominate the show again and makes it very clear that this is not just about entertainment, but also about him, about his position in the world that he wants back.

Manson never understood art as an answer, but always as an instrument, as a form of questioning supposed certainties. He is now doing so by countering the media prejudice to which he felt exposed with his certainty that he was merely a victim of false accusations. Not only his new album, but also his entire show is imbued with it, and yes, great and, for the first time in a long time, relevant art emerges from it, as you could see that evening. Because yes, Warner is always particularly good when he stands in front of the ruins of a world that he can reassemble. It is almost grotesque that it had to be the ruins of his world that it took to restore him artistically to the underdog status he needs to achieve top musical performances.

In Berlin the Facade is Still Standing

If it turns out that this time he is not just putting the pieces back together, but is also the one responsible for them, then Marilyn Manson will one day collapse as a construct in front of Brian Warner.

And what would remain of the big show and the staged excess would be nothing more than the unvarnished tragedy. In Berlin the facade is still standing. And the show goes on.

Source: Rolling Stone Germany. Translated by John of Marilyn Manson Uncanceled.