The shock rocker throws a tantrum in his hotel room.
Shock rocker Marilyn Manson flew into an "infantile rage" and trashed his dressing room and hotel room during an upstate concert over the weekend, an insider said. The musician and his freaky friends set fire to their dressing room at the Poughkeepsie Civic Center, smashed expensive lighting equipment - and later wrought havoc at the Poughkeepsie Sheraton, causing thousands of dollars worth of damage, local officials and band sources said.
"It was one of his typical, infantile rages," the insider told The Post.
"Nobody really knows what set him off. It could have been absolutely nothing."
The vandalism occurred while the band was in town for a Saturday-night concert.
"Right now, I have a telephone literally stuck in the middle of a wall," Sheraton general manager Donna McLean said, charging that Manson and his followers destroyed four of the hotel's 175 rooms.
"There are burns on the carpets, which now have to be replaced," she said. "We've been scrubbing the sinks and bathtubs since Sunday because of the hair dye they used, and we still can't get them clean.
"These are definitely not the kind of people we usually have staying with us," said the disgusted GM.
Before turning his rage on his room, Manson went to work backstage before the concert, starting a fire that brought in the local fire department.
"They trashed the dressing rooms, and in doing so set fire to a T-shirt," said fire chief Jack Forbes. "The shirt burned a hole in the carpeting, which set off the smoke alarms."
The fire had been put out by the time firemen arrived, but the band was told, in no uncertain terms, "that we'd throw them out and cancel the concert if we were called back again," Forbes said.
After the show, McLean said, hotel management received several complaints from other guests about the noise coming from Manson's rooms.
"It was really terrible because we had weddings and other events going on, and it wasn't fair to other guests," she said.
This, despite promises from Manson's handlers that the renegade rockers would be well-behaved.
"Before they checked in, the person who made their reservations guaranteed up and down we wouldn't have a problem with them," McLean said.
"She said we wouldn't even recognize them - that Manson traveled with his parents and that we could mistake him for a businessman."
Unconvinced, McLean enlisted the help of Poughkeepsie Police Chief Ronald Knapp, who put extra men on duty at the Civic Center and the parking garage that connects the arena to the hotel.
Sure enough, said McLean, "the band came in looking like freaks. What kind of businessmen have purple hair? There was one girl who was wrapped head-to-toe in chains."
Interscope, Manson's label, had no comment. Staffers said the raging rocker couldn't be reached because he was busy preparing for last night's New York show at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
To Manson's credit, said McLean, the group did not dispute its trail of destruction.
"They had already taken pictures of all the damages, and they didn't give us any problem about paying for them," she said. "For that, I am very grateful."
The Sheraton still has not tallied the tab for repairs, but one insider - apparently familiar with Manson's antics - put the total cost to the hotel and Civic Center at more than $25,000.
-- Jeane McIntosh - 11/25/98