Rob Zombie / Marilyn Manson @ SECC, 28 November
The spooky kids adore Marilyn Manson – they mouth the words to every song as the God of Fuck goes through several costume changes and stage sets. Disappointingly, Manson fails to deliver on the promise of a 'greatest hits' package – rather, he performs a self-indulgent set culled from his weaker albums. So in place of Fight Song, we get a turgid mOBSCENE; instead of The Nobodies, he trudges half-heartedly through The Dope Show.
The fact that the set's highlights are aging covers – Sweet Dreams and Personal Jesus – is telling. Also significant is the imagery he employs – a two-armed cross rather than an inverted crucifix; flouncily tearing pages from a bible; and the clulmination – his old set of cod-Nazi banners, a Hitler-like portrait as backdrop, and a podium. Manson continues to flirt with extreme imagery to mask his increasingly dull music.
In contrast, Rob Zombie delivers all killer and no filler. His stage set – staggered walls of carnivalesque video screens, microphone stands made of bones – is colonised by a succession of vast, weird creations, from giant 1950s robots to a twenty-foot devil; drones and contraptions with visual nods to industrial SF classic Hardware; and a pumpkin-headed ghost.
There is barely time to breathe between the hits, as Zombie opens with Jesus Frankenstein, and barrels through utter classics from his comic-book industrial ouevre, including Sick Bubblegum; a juddering, anthemic Living Dead Girl; and a stomping Mars Needs Women, all culminating in a thrilling encore of Dragula. Zombie's palette of influences is at once more interesting and heartfelt than Manson's – shots of Sherri Moon-Zombie are intercut with splatter-filled cartoons, segments from The Lair of the White Wyrm, and classic MGM monster flicks. His conviction and humour sustain two cheese-fest 'rawk' covers (Enter Sandman and School's Out). The commitment Zombie shows to giving the fans what they want marks him as the clear winner of this much-hyped bout. [Illya Kuryakin]