Marilyn Manson 8/25/07

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Marilyn Manson was touring for Eat Me, Drink Me that had just been released less than three months before this show. I went with Donna, a girl I had been seeing since the beginning of the year with a white contact in one of my eyes leftover from my previous year’s vampire Halloween costume. I remember this show being General Admission (my favorite) because we sat in a seat for Slayer and went down to the floor for Marilyn Manson. Tim Skold had moved from bass to take over lead guitar duties for this tour. It was not the same as seeing Twiggy and John 5 but was an upgrade from the last time I had seen Marilyn Manson in L.A.

This was apparently a time period where Marilyn Manson was especially taken with Lewis Carroll. He reportedly began to make a movie called Phantasmagoria: The Visons of Lewis Carroll where he was to play Mr. Carroll around this time but scrapped it due to the emotional drain it was having on his psyche. The Alice In Wonderland influence on the album/show was evident throughout this show, especially when they played “Are You the Rabbit?” (my favorite song on the new album) and brought a giant chair out onstage. Unrelated but this may have also been the first time I saw the “knife microphone.”

SETLIST: If I Was Your Vampire, Disposable Teens, mOBSCENE, Are You the Rabbit?, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)/Lunchbox, Just a Car Crash Away, Heart-Shaped Glasses, Rock Is Dead, The Dope Show, Putting Holes in Happiness, The Fight Song, The Reflecting God, Antichrist Superstar, The Beautiful People

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System of a Down 8/6/05

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This was my first time to the iconic San Diego Sports Arena and I had not seen System of a Down for almost three years. They were touring for their new album Mezmerize that had come out in May, the first of what could have been a double album with Hypnotize but the band decided to release the two albums separately and six months apart to give fans time to digest the first before releasing the next. Lucinda and I were talking again so just her and I went. I remember it was HOT AS HELL inside and the Mars Volta opened up. I want to say the stage was in the middle of the arena as opposed to being at one end.

System of a Down came out behind a semi-opaque curtain hanging from the ceiling so we could only see their silhouettes. Just like the album they opened with “Soldier Side – Intro” and right as they went into “B.Y.O.B.” the curtain dropped. We were right in front of the stage on the floor and everyone lost their fucking mind. After that I remember the band continued with the new album in sequence with “Revenga.” Other than that I remember Daron Malakian talking a little about Charles Manson before they played “ATWA” and I remember “Lost in Hollywood” seeming so much heavier live than on the album. This is one of the few bands I have ever seen that plays the songs better live than on the album. They definitely gave us our money’s worth on this night.

SETLIST: Soldier Side – Intro, B.Y.O.B., Revenga, Know, Needles, Deer Dance, Suggestions, Psycho, Chop Suey!, Kill Rock ‘n Roll, My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue)
(Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover), Sad Statue, Violent Pornography, Mr. Jack, Cigaro, This Cocaine Makes Me Feel Like I’m on This Song, Bounce, ATWA, Forest, Lost in Hollywood, Question!, War?, Prison Song, Roulette, Aerials, Toxicity, Science, Suite-Pee, Sugar

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