Name: Chris Birdsong
Date: 12/1/00
Venue: Dane County Expo
City: Madison, WI

I went to the Madison show last night, and I gotta say, amazing! Manson posted on the news site that Ginger would have his arm in a sling, but he used both arms to play drums last night. I saw Manson on Oct 27 in Minneapolis, the first show of the tour, and he had a huge kit, like the one on the Antichrist tour, but this has a black mottled finish, like globbed-on black/grey paint. He also has his drums doubled up, what i mean by this is there are smaller kick drums in front of the kick drums that are played, and the toms are stacked, one on top of the other. I dont know why this is, it wouldnt make a difference in tone I dont think, but the only theory I have is that in case Manson attacks the drum kit, the drums that Ginger plays will be somewhat protected from the attack; but with Ginger being injured in New York, that theory doesnt really work. He also has a hammer and sickle symbol(like on the old Soviet Union flag) on the head of one kick drum, and the Mercury symbol on the head of the other kick drum. For Madison, his kit was a lot smaller, only having a few cymbals, and a couple toms. And all the drums were so close together, probably so he didnt have to reach too far. He used a china cymbal, 2 crashes, and a ride, and from what I could see it appeared his hi-hats were right in front of the snare. But it sounded just the same, which suprised me. So dont worry about them not being able to give 100%. If youre really picky you will be able to tell that he isnt playing all the tom fills and there might be a difference in the tone since he isnt using all his cymbals, but its hardly noticeable in the big cacophony of distorted guitar noise and everything. I think he might have a booster thing going too through the PA, so even though he might not be able to hit the drums as hard due to his injury, it will sound as if he is. Manson didnt say anything to the crowd about Ginger, like I heard he did at the past couple shows. It was a solid set, with "1996" as the only encore. The band didnt trash the stage either, which was probably a good thing. The stage itself looked a lot cleaner than in Minneapolis, Pogo only had a keyboard and his cymbal and drum setup, unlike Minneapolis, where he had 3 keyboards plus the drums he plays during the Dope Show and Disposable Teens. So, it was a great show, hope to see them come back again! I came all the way from Minneapolis, so it was definetly worth the trip!
-Chris