Marilyn Manson cut short last night’s concert at the Paramount in Huntington, New York after displaying “bizarre” onstage behavior, including a rambling freestyle jam and repeated demands for applause, according to multiple reports. Fan-shot videos show the 49-year-old shock rocker with his back to the crowd, delivered a half-mumbled, half-sung monologue as his band plays an aimless extended blues jam. By the end of the show, local paper Newsday reports, the crowd was chanting, “Refund! Refund!”
“Manson came out with a bang but the whole thing deteriorated very quickly,” Instagram user @saturn.ascends wrote in a recap of the show. “Once it got to be 10 minutes of begging for adoration and no music, I think we all started to realize something was wrong. Once he was temporarily satisfied, it didn’t improve. They would start songs only to screech them to a halt a minute in. There were very drawn out versions of songs where Manson mostly rambled on about our lack of love and other bizarre things. After an hour and fifteen minutes of this, he threw his microphone and left the stage.”
As Brooklyn Vegan points out, the Paramount’s own Instagram comments are full of disgruntled fans demanding refunds. “3 songs in and the dude had a mental breakdown or was a drunk dick,” wrote one commenter; “He [even] had the audacity brag that he was ripping us off,” wrote another. “Comments like ‘you’re already in the [crowd] so I can do this all night.’”
Not much has gone right for Manson and his band in recent months. Manson launched the current tour last October in support of his new album Heaven Upside Down, but was forced to cancel dates after suffering a dramatic onstage injury when a gun-shaped prop fell on him, breaking his leg in two places. Shortly after, former guitarist Daisy Berkowitz (real name Scott Putesky) died from complications of colon cancer, and longtime bassist Twiggy Ramirez (real name Jeordie White) was fired from the group following allegations of sexual assault. Manson returned to touring last November with his leg in a cast, but immediately sparked controversy when he aimed a fake rifle at an audience in San Bernardino, California.