Brian Hugh Warner, the artist behind both the man and the band known as Marilyn Manson, has crafted a daunting persona, and the band’s “Hey Cruel World” tour schedule, interspersed with the “Twins of Evil” co-headlining trek with Rob Zombie last fall, was also clearly not for the faint of heart, either. Launched just prior to, and continuing after, the May 1, 2012 release of Manson’s Born Villain album, the tour legs included Australia (six shows in February and March), Asia (five shows in Japan and Taiwan in March) the U.S. (18 shows in April and May) and Europe (24 shows in 24 cities, May-July).
The tour then had three North American dates in August before “Twins of Evil” took over for the remainder of 2012, with 23 shows in the U.S. and 13 in Europe from late September through mid-December.
Marilyn Manson’s “Hey Cruel World” tour picked up again for 2013, crisscrossing the U.S. with 25 shows in January and February. Later this year, Manson will be out on another co-headlining jaunt, this one the “Masters of Madness: Shock Therapy” tour with Alice Cooper with 32 dates this summer.
The LD responsible for electrifying the visuals for Manson’s larger-than-life stage presence is Christian Rapp. He took a few moments from his busy 2013 tour schedule to share a few details with PLSN.
Christian Rapp, Lighting Designer & Director:
“This is my first time working with Marilyn Manson, though I had worked with some members of his road crew before with the band Slipknot. I started back in 1988 with a band called Sacred Reich and from there I was working for all the metal bands — among them, Fates Warning, Sepultura, Helloween, Slayer, Machine Head, Saxon, Soulfly, a number of German bands and so on…
“I’ve used a variety of lighting consoles over the years, from a Celco, [Zero88] Frog, Leprecon and Avolites up to the [MA Lighting] Scan Commander and [High End Systems] Hog. On this tour I’m using a grandMA… maybe in the future we’ll be able to connect to a PlayStation and drive the light show like a Wii 2. We’ve got some good fixtures on the show, some Clay Paky and Martin gear in the package, with Upstaging’s John Bahnick as the account rep, whom I’ve worked with before on Stone Sour and Slipknot tours.
“It’s been great. I was trusted by Manson based on my past work, so I was pretty much left to do what I liked. There were some staple scenes of the show from past tours, such as the DRUGS sign, which is 600 light bulbs… I like show pieces more than video walls. Everybody’s got video on the road, and it all starts to looks the same… it becomes more a pixel show than a light show. Manson and Slipknot have been my favorites to work with the most… and in between touring, I like to go out with a laser and remove tattoos to relax…”
More photos at www.plsn.me/MansonExtras
