A happy consequence of the shuttering of Avalon is the glut of good rock shows at the Orpheum Theatre. None of these shows are exactly small. (Editors played here recently, as did the Smashing Pumpkins.) But few have had the peculiar ballast of Brian Hugh Warner's traveling carnival - what else to call it? - which arrived Saturday night, an hour late, on the venue's undersized stage.
Warner, better known as Marilyn Manson, has long thrived on theatricality, and the lingering possibility he might inflict egregious harm, physical or psychic, upon the audience. In that respect, he is an heir to Black Sabbath or Alice Cooper - acts that relied, partly, on visual context.
Saturday's count went something like this: one metric ton of confetti, six instances of vaguely anti-Catholic finger puppetry, hands down pants (both, though neither simultaneously), mike down pants (looked uncomfortable), one partially exposed buttock, a gigantic podium designed to evoke Nazi Germany, a few smashed guitars, and an eerie walking mannequin, who was duly decapitated and de-limbed, with her head placed on a platter, beside a bottle of beer and a large plastic steak.
(For those who missed the point, halfway through the set, a giant flashing billboard appeared over Manson's head. It spelled, in part, the word "obscene.")
Capacity at the Orpheum is just shy of 3,000 - some sit up top in the balcony, and some in the mezzanine - which meant no one was ever too far from the debauchery. Manson, a veteran of stadium productions, seemed especially inspired by the intimacy; at one point he waded deep into the orchestra, where he was pounced on by fans and eventually dragged back to the stage by a cadre of worried security guards.
The joke I'm supposed to make now is that Manson's offensiveness declines in direct proportion to how eagerly he now seems willing to offend. After all, in these YouTube days, we're all so inured to violence and absurdity that we don't blink an eye at a partially naked man with a shiny butcher knife attached to his microphone.
But the problem with that argument is it implies that Manson's music - cordant and bold, and not at all very frightening - is unimportant. In fact, it's the opposite. In addition to all the theater, Manson also played music: 90 minutes worth, and most of it shiny and propulsive. Anthems like "Dope Show," "Beautiful People," and "Disposable Teens" went the furthest with the diehard fans. But a new song, "If I Was Your Vampire," with its message that "Instead of killing time/ We'll have each other," was the night's best, grim and bright by turns.
And that's the real revelation to the 2008 Brian Hugh Warner: A steady trend toward the explicitly utopian. Having established himself as an "Antichrist Superstar," the man is now free to make songs about - wait for it - love. As Jimmy Gnecco, the lead singer for Ours, the New York-based openers, announced, Marilyn Manson came to Boston on Saturday to bring "happiness into your hearts."
