Outside, a small clutch of concerned Christians conduct a discreet vigil for the reckless teenage souls queuing around the block.

Once inside, the massed goth hordes are betraying a lifetime's moroseness by being as giddily excited as Elton John at a Dolcis sale - two adolescent fans, each with the word 'Manson' etched on their foreheads in fake blood, are necking a family pack of Opal Fruits as though Satan himself were about to confiscate them.

Still, who can blame them? Marilyn Manson is one of the few musical performers to have risen above mere celebrity status into the iconic - in his way he is as much a symbol of the US as George 'Dubya' Bush (albeit one with a better grasp of current affairs).

When Manson appears it is a suitably epic moment - backlit onto a sheet stretched across the stage, he appears as the silhouette of a giant angel. As the sheet is cast aside, the wings - great expanses of material - are shed and the band detonate a still pulverising version of 'Irresponsible Hate Anthem'.

Almost elegant in an ankle-length dress, Manson flails uninhibitedly around the stage, and at the song's conclusion he sheds the dress to great cheers revealing a corset and a slashed arrangement of leggings and briefs.

The songs are unremittingly intense, be they the pure sonic assault of upcoming single 'Fight Song' or stalking-pace electro-goth work-outs like 'The Dope Show'. Any potential monotony in this is offset by the theatrics, which are second to none.

When the band kickstart the menacing stomp of 'Cruci-Fiction In Space' from a darkened stage, a sudden burst of light reveals Manson suddenly thirty feet tall, a skirt reaching down to the ground.

At other points he appears as the Pope, flanked by decapitated models of his head, or gesticulates from a huge podium, bellowing 'Love Song's accusatory "Do you love your guns? God? The government?" as a giant crucifix made of rifles hangs behind him.

With such an enormously impressionable audience it seems a shame that all Manson seems to do is reinforce the idea that life is miserable and unfair. Still, you can't say they don't ask for it - when their idol asks "Who wants to be abused?", during a quiet part of the otherwise turgid cover of Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams', some Nuremberg Rally-like impulse makes everyone in the crowd put their hand up and shout "Me!".

Manson obliges by dragging up a delighted fresh-faced boy and gleefully pretends to bugger him. As much of his career has been spent railing against mindless conformity, it'd be nice to think that a point was being made in there somewhere, but I'm not sure.

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