Well this weekend began my summer concert run. It’s not as full as past summers bit I’m still hitting some big tours that are happening. This past Saturday the tour featuring Marilyn Manson and Slipnkot rolled through one of my favorite summer venues, PNC Bank Arts Center in New Jersey. Sure I saw both of these artists last summer but when you get some of your favorite artists together on a tour it’s hard to pass up.
Marilyn Manson was absolutely amazing last summer. He literally stole the tour from Smashing Pumpkins on year ago. But this past weekends performance by the Antichrist Superstar was absolutely horrendous. And I’m a big fan of his, seen him live several times, and rarely has he disappointed. Well his performance made Vince Neil look like he’s a god. Manson was off from song one when he missed the cue to start singing for “Angel with the Scabbed Wing” and because the humidity was disgustingly high the smoke took forever to disappear so the band never saw his signal to start over.
I had hoped it was just an opening song hiccup due to weather but no. It just continued downhill. He mumbled through “No Reflection”, “mOBSCENE”, and more that you could see the hardcore fans who new the words he wasn’t attempting to sing and who was there just to hear his radio singles of “Sweet Dreams” and “Beautiful People”. Which he also mumbled his way through. I don’t know why Manson was so off his game but I hope it’s only temporary because for the first time in a long time I was bored by one of my favorite artists.
With such a let down by Marilyn Manson I was honestly a bit worried that this might be a let down show if Slipknot didn’t deliver. Luckily for myself and the thousands in attendance at the show Slipknot came out swinging hard.
Coming out blasting with “The Negative One” I knew that they weren’t going to slip. Sure Slipknot was out last summer but it was obvious from first notes that they wanted to match the intensity of last summer. Which they most definitely did.
Cranking through songs from all over their catalog like “Eyeless” from Slipknot and hitting Iowa with “The Heretic Anthem” along with countless others. And what can’t be ignored is Corey Taylor‘s performance after having life saving neck surgery.
Corey Taylor did the entire show in a neck brace and DID NOT miss a step or complain once. Did he mention it? Yes because it was obviously visabled and if you’re a Slipknot fan you knew about it. This is something several musicians who have cancelled shows for “hang nails” or “a cough” something to learn from. Corey Taylor had every reason to half ass his performance but no he gave 110% and it showed.
The highlight of the night for me is how I’ll end this. Near the end of Slipknot‘s set Corey Taylor said “let’s go back to our first album back in 1999…” and the barely 21-year old couple in front of me freaked out and got excited as the band went into “Wait And Bleed”. I laughed at first as they couldn’t have been older than 4 when the song first was released by then I just smiled knowing that if they knew the bands history then there is hope for the future of music after all.
