Slipknot w/ Marilyn Manson
White River Amphitheatre, Auburn, WA
08.11.16
Upholding every bit of theatricality that both acts are known for, Slipknot and Marilyn Manson finally made their tour stop at Auburn’s White River Amphitheatre to a full house of highly excited fans.
The infamously boundary-pushing shock rocker Marilyn Manson appeared in a cloud of smoke, against a backdrop of a 666-dollar bill emblazoned with his own head. He lurched and toiled around on the stage, tossed colored-powder bombs at the crowd, and threw his polarizing ideologies around with abandon. Manson left the stage after every track to swap out costume parts and props and allow the stage set to be changed up, the extended breaks, though, made for a herky-jerky performance.
After “Irresponsible Hate Anthem” Manson says “Let me see every middle finger in Seattle,” and the crowd obliges, fingers raised high in the air. And then “I have no memory what this song is about because it’s about drugs. So I do have that memory,” leads into classic “The Dope Show.” For his now-famous cover of The Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” he appears on stilts, with long crutches, ambling about, screaming the lyrics, then “Antichrist Superstar” brings out a giant Hitler-reminiscent podium and matching banners, burning bibles, and mics ripped apart and thrown about the stage. At the end of closer “The Beautiful People” he’s in the barricade, right up against the fans as they crowd-surf right for him, then he starts to walk out to the side of the crowd but hits the end of the track and gets a bit lost trying to find an opening through the curtain to get backstage, before the crowd receives a sputtering of 666-dollar-bill confetti floating down from the rafters.
After a half-hour break, and sufficient anticipation build-up, nu-metal rockers Slipknot proved that where there’s a will, there’s a way. The stage is set with dramatic ramps, hydraulic lifts, and a massive video screen displaying everything from burning mannequins to neon fetuses. After having to delay the tour a few weeks due to vocalist Corey Taylor’s unplanned spinal surgery, the band delivered a performance worthy of the massive circle pit that formed amongst the floor crowd.
Despite a lack of his former head-banging and jumping around the stage, Taylor still brought the heavy artillery as far as passion and vocals, taking each track from throbbing screams to melodic, clean vocals with ease. The ghoulishly masked, 9-piece band showed off their extensive catalog with impressive intensity. Hollowed out kegs were turned into drums and mounted with taxidermy goat heads as the kits rose and fell and spun at the corners of the stage, keyboardist Sid Wilson pulled some smooth dance moves, and the crowd sent surfers to the front in constant rotation. Their show was intensely aesthetic, with a lot of focus on artistic video and delivery, and the sound was on point.
If you’re a fan of either band, their tour and shows are definitely still worth every minute.
Slipknot Set List
The Negative One
Disasterpiece
Eyeless
Skeptic
Before I Forget
Killpop
Dead Memories
The Heretic Anthem
Phychosocial
Pulse of the Maggots
Left Behind
The Devil in I
Wait and Bleed
(sic)
Encore
Surfacing
Duality
Spit It Out
Marilyn Manson Set List
Angel With the Scabbed Wings
Disposable Teens
No Reflection
mOBSCENE
Killing Strangers
Irresponsible Hate Anthem
The Dope Show
Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) (Eurythmics cover)
Antichrist Superstar
Come White
The Beautiful People
Review by Stephanie Dore
Photos by Sunny Martini
Slipknot
Marilyn Manson
