Controversial rock star Marilyn Manson will perform in Dublin this summer, when he will be the "special guest" at the Iron Maiden concert at the RDS on August 31st. With his theatrical dress sense and doom laden goth-metal music, Manson has a large cult following but his live performances have been regularly criticised by "family values" groups for his supposed use of Satanic imagery.
The US singer (real name Brian Warner) was in the news last week following a court case in Scotland when a 16-year-old youth was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for the brutal murder of his 14-year-old girlfriend. During the trial the jury were show pictures drawn by Manson depicting the brutal 1940s Hollywood murder of actress Elizabeth Short. The trial judge, Lord Nimmo Smith, said he could not ignore the similarities between the injuries inflicted on the girl and those depicted in Manson's paintings of the actress. "I think that you carried an image of the paintings [drawn by Manson] in your memory when you killed Jodi," Lord Smith told the accused, Luke Mitchell.
Manson released a statement following the trial dismissing the judge's suggestion that his work had influenced the killer. "I have heard about the case but I do not want to give it too much publicity," he said last week. "What I do know is that it is all about education that parents give their children and the influences they receive, and not about putting the blame elsewhere."
Previously, Manson had been accused by certain US religious groupings of being "an influence" on the two US school students who went on a shooting spree in the Columbine High School in Denver in 1999, killing 25 of their classmates.
