St. Louis apparently got the memo: wear black, bring your weird friends and prepare to spend the night somewhere between a Mongolian war cry, an industrial fever dream and Rob Zombie yelling at you to put your damn phone away. With Orgy, The HU, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie sharing one bill, the night was loud, theatrical, nostalgic, wonderfully strange and packed with people who knew exactly what they came for.
There was a time when Orgy was a household name—or at least a household name in homes where MTV, alternative rock and industrial music ruled the television. Now they’re an opener for an opener, which feels almost strange when you remember just how big they once were.
But don’t mistake their place on the bill for a band that’s run out of life. Orgy still has plenty of it.
There’s something satisfying about watching a band so strongly connected to an era walk onto a stage decades later and remind everyone why their name mattered in the first place. They had the difficult job of getting a four-band night started while much of the crowd was still making its way in, but they weren’t simply there to fill time before the bigger names arrived. There’s still life in Orgy, and there’s still an audience happy to hear it.
Then The HU walked out and once again proved that they might be one of the most genuinely joyful heavy bands to watch perform.
Every time I’ve seen The HU, they look just as happy to be on that stage as we are to see them. Their energy was phenomenal, their performance was phenomenal, and that unmistakable collision of traditional Mongolian instrumentation, throat singing and heavy rock sounded absolutely massive live.
There’s also something special about the relationship The HU has developed with this city. They love St. Louis, and St. Louis loves them right back. You can feel it when they perform here. Their enthusiasm never comes across as the obligatory “we love your city” tour-stop speech. They genuinely seem thrilled to be here, and the crowd returns that energy tenfold.
It’s always fantastic seeing The HU live, and this night was no exception.
Then came Marilyn Manson, and St. Louis absolutely came out for him.
Looking around the pit, there were familiar faces from the last time Manson rolled through town—the same dedicated fan base back at the barricade and ready to do it all over again. One fan takes that dedication to an entirely different level, traveling to every Manson show she possibly can on every tour.
Her count for 2026 alone?
48 shows and counting.
At this point, she’s practically part of the touring crew.
Manson was phenomenal. Sober looks good on him, and there’s a noticeable presence about him onstage—focused, commanding and completely immersed in the performance. His set is larger than life, and Manson remains exactly what he’s always been at his core: a pure entertainer who knows how to hold an entire amphitheater in the palm of his hand.
The band looks a little different this time around as well. Piggy D, formerly of Rob Zombie, has moved from bass to rhythm guitar, while Swedish musician Tim Sköld has returned on bass. It’s an interesting bit of musical chairs on a tour where Piggy D’s former bandleader is waiting just down the bill, but the configuration works.
The spectacle is still there, the songs still hit, and the man at the center of it all looks like he’s exactly where he wants to be.
And then there’s Rob Zombie.
Zombie is a true beacon of entertainment. You don’t even have to like his music to appreciate his show. A Rob Zombie concert is bigger than a collection of songs. It’s horror, camp, monsters, massive visuals, ridiculous amounts of energy and the kind of theatrical excess that makes you remember why live music can be so much damn fun.
But one of the best moments of his set required almost none of it.
Zombie took some time to reminisce about playing St. Louis’ American Theater back in the day and expressed his continued appreciation for the people who have kept showing up for him all these years.
Well, most of them.
Because apparently there is one thing that can get under Rob Zombie’s skin: looking into the crowd and seeing everyone staring back at him through a phone.
As he introduced “1965,” Zombie asked everyone to put their phones away for at minimum 45 seconds. That’s it. Forty-five seconds to stop documenting the concert and actually be at the concert.
Easy enough.
Well, for almost everyone.
One girl near me continued recording, which meant my hands apparently made guest appearances in every single one of her videos. But here’s the thing: when the artist specifically asks you to put your phone away and you still choose to hold it up near someone else’s face, you really can’t be mad when their hands end up in your footage. Consider it an unexpected collaboration.
For those who accepted Zombie’s 45-second challenge, though, something incredibly simple happened.
We were just there.
No screens between us and the stage. No worrying about getting the perfect clip to post later. Just thousands of people sharing a moment with the artist standing in front of them.
Forty-five seconds shouldn’t feel significant, but in 2026, asking an entire amphitheater to put down its phones and simply exist together almost feels radical.
It’s funny that on a night filled with enormous screens, elaborate production, decades of nostalgia and four wildly different bands, one of the moments that stuck with me most happened when everyone was asked to turn their screens off.
Orgy reminded us that moving down the bill doesn’t mean you’ve lost your place in music history. The HU once again proved why the connection between them and St. Louis feels so genuine. Marilyn Manson commanded the stage with the unmistakable presence and theatricality that have made him one of rock’s most recognizable performers for decades. And Rob Zombie somehow managed to make one of the biggest moments of an enormous production happen when he asked us to put the screens down.
Four completely different performances, four very different reasons to remember them.
Not everything needs to become content.
Turns out, you can put the phone down and still take something home with you.
Melissa O’Rourke aka WickedWitchofSTL is a jack of all trades. By day she’s an established tattooist and piercer, by night a mother to her amazing son (who is a hell of a guitarist). Melissa has a musical background and can often be found at a local karaoke joint, or a concert when she’s not driving across the country for an adventure. This social butterfly always welcomes conversation so come say hi! See y’all at the next gig!
