Wednesday night at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, Rob Zombie did what he has done for decades: he made a midweek outdoor date feel like a midnight movie that escaped the screen.
The Freaks on Parade 2026 co-headline with Marilyn Manson — with The Hu and Orgy on the bill — rolled through St. Louis on Sept. 9 as part of a late-summer amphitheater run. Doors were early. Zombie did not take the stage until after 9:40 p.m. By the time he closed a roughly hour-long set around 10:45, the lawn and pavilion had already been worked over by industrial riffs, Mongolian folk-metal, and Manson’s gothic theater. Zombie’s job was to finish the job. He did.
The production remains the point. Giant screens, pyro, and the usual parade of monsters and carnival-sideshow imagery framed a tight set that mixed new material with the catalog that still owns the night. He opened with “F.T.W. 84” and “Tarantula,” then punched straight into “Superbeast.” “The Triumph of King Freak (A Crypt of Preservation and Superstition)” sat next to White Zombie’s “More Human Than Human.” “Scum of the Earth,” “Well, Everybody’s Fucking in a U.F.O.,” and “Living Dead Girl” kept the floor moving. Mid-set cuts “Heathen Days,” “Feel So Numb,” and “House of 1000 Corpses” gave the band room to breathe before “Never Gonna Stop (The Red, Red Kroovy)” and “Thunder Kiss ’65.” The closer, as it has been across this tour, was “Dragula.”
Zombie still works the stage like a ringmaster who also happens to write the songs. Ryan Goff held down the kit on this run; Mike Riggs and Blasko locked in behind the visuals. The crowd knew the choruses. They sang them. That is the contract at a Rob Zombie show, and St. Louis kept its end.
The supporting bill did its work. Orgy leaned on late-’90s industrial nostalgia. The Hu brought throat singing and horsehead fiddles into a setting that rarely hears them. Manson, co-headlining, delivered the expected mix of menace and hits. None of that diluted Zombie’s closer. It framed it.
For a local music blog, the takeaway is simple: the formula still works. The songs are older. The staging is still loud and ridiculous in the best way. A Wednesday night in Maryland Heights felt like an event instead of a stop.
Remaining tour dates
The Freaks on Parade 2026 run continues:
- Thursday, Sept. 10 — Morton Amphitheater, Riverside, Mo.
- Saturday, Sept. 12 — Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre, Greenwood Village, Colo.
- Monday, Sept. 14 — Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre, West Valley City, Utah
- Wednesday, Sept. 16 — BECU Live at Northern Quest, Airway Heights, Wash.
- Thursday, Sept. 17 — White River Amphitheatre, Auburn, Wash.
- Friday, Sept. 18 — Cascades Amphitheater, Ridgefield, Wash.
- Sunday, Sept. 20 — Toyota Pavilion at Concord, Concord, Calif.
That is the end of the announced North American co-headline. Check official listings for support variations and on-sale details.
