Marilyn Manson's independent touring
The local tour was not an actual tour, but a category of performances Marilyn Manson made before opening for Nine Inch Nails in 1994. The band performed at various locations in Florida such as Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Miami Beach, South Hallandale, and Davie, among various other one-night venues. During this time, the band is known to have left Florida only three times to perform. Until August 1992, the band played these shows as Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids. The band played these local shows from late 1989 until April 7, 1994.
Contents
Lineup
- Vocals: Marilyn Manson
- Guitar: Daisy Berkowitz
- Bass: Olivia Newton Bundy (From the beginning of the "tour", until November 20, 1989), Gidget Gein (From November 27, 1989, until the December 31, 1993 performance)
- Keyboards: Zsa Zsa Speck (From the beginning of the "tour", until November 20, 1989), Madonna Wayne Gacy (From November 27, 1989, until the end of the "tour")
- Drums: Yamaha RX-8 drum machine (From the beginning of the "tour", until 1991), Sara Lee Lucas (1991, until the end of the "tour")
Setlist
During the first two years of the band's existence, they had recorded a core set of songs that they would perform favorably, some that would never be performed again following the local shows. The following list contains the most commonly played songs in the order they were most generally performed:
- "Cake and Sodomy"
- "Learning to Swim"
- "White Knuckles"
- "Suicide Snowman"
- "Lunchbox"
- "Dope Hat"
- "My Monkey"
- "Misery Machine"
Towards the end of the local shows and the near completion of the band's debut album Portrait of an American Family, the live setlist resembled the following, occasionally with answering machine messages sampled as an intro and outro respectively:
- "Get Your Gunn"
- "Filth"
- "Suicide Snowman"
- "Dope Hat"
- "White Knuckles"
- "Sweet Tooth"
- "Wrapped in Plastic"
- "Lunchbox"
- "Choklit Factory"
- "Misery Machine"
- "Thrift"
- "Cake and Sodomy"
- "Dune Buggy"
Stage Antics
During the Spooky Kids Era, the concerts featured several antics among which were girls covered in blood and wearing animal masks. Manson describes in The Long Hard Road out of Hell, how one night they had a woman iron a nazi flag onstage. There were also cages and the renowned Madonna Wayne Gacy keyboard paraphernalia, such as dismembered doll heads.
Tour Dates
Trivia
- After the performance at the Reunion Room, which Manson has described as the band's "first real performance", Zsa Zsa Speck and Olivia Newton Bundy were 'kicked out' of the band. They were replaced by the next performance by Madonna Wayne Gacy who hadn't yet attained a keyboard so instead played with toy soldiers onstage in the meantime, and Gidget Gein, guitarist of local band Insanity Assassin, respectively.
- On July 31, 1992 in Davie, Florida, Marilyn Manson officially revealed the band's new name, as prior to this the band was known as Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids.
- The band was allegedly payed over $300 more than the normal rate for gigs, to perform at the Reunion Room. This was due to Manson's "lesson number one in music-industry manipulation: If you act like a rock star, you will be treated like one."
- The band's first performance, at Churchill's Hideway in Miami, is described in Manson's autobiography The Long Hard Road out of Hell. The band opened up with what Manson described as his favorite poem, "The Telephone". 20 people attended the performance.