This Saturday, shock-rock icon Marilyn Manson will do his Marilyn Manson thing at The Rave. Manson—a.k.a. Brian “Brian Isn’t A Very Spooky Name” Warner—is currently touring behind a new and well-reviewed album, The Pale Emperor, but his days as a lightning rod for controversy and mass-media hysteria are long behind him. No longer blamed by parents for school shootings and rib removals, no longer fingered by journalists for the downfall of Western civilization and being Paul from The Wonder Years, Manson’s over-the-top goth schtick is now seen for what it is: entertainment. He’s more Alice Cooper than Aleister Crowley.
But damn, wasn’t it funny when everyone was freaking out over Marilyn Manson? Those days are brought back from the dead in the YouTube classic Black & White: The Story Of A Marilyn Manson Concert. The no-budget, 11-minute documentary chronicles the madness taking place outside a Manson show at the Milwaukee Arena on April 25, 1999. The Antichrist Superstar was at the height of his controversial powers at the time—the Milwaukee show was a mere five days after the Columbine massacre—and the video shows groups of hand-wringing “Jesus Saves!” protestors mixing it up with throngs of black-clad “Fuck Jesus!” Manson fans. It’s really quite the hoot.
Shot on a whim by Vanguard co-owner Chris Schulist and friends, Black & White is remarkably deadpan and non-judgmental—it simply watches the crazies on both sides of the fence do their thing. “Basically I wanted to make a Heavy Metal Parking Lot because we used to love that video,” Schulist tells Milwaukee Record. “I decided to film this particular one because the Jesus freaks were protesting outside. It was really funny because all of the Jesus freaks thought I was a Marilyn Manson fan, and the Marilyn Manson fans thought I was a protester. It’s me filming and kind of asking questions. Basically I didn’t have to say anything because they just would come up and talk to me because I was filming. It was fun.”
Watch the entire video below. Some choice quotes:
“He’s concerned about your soul. So am I.”
“John 3:16. That’s the thing they put on all the football flyers?”
“I’m suing Jesus for fucking defamation of character!”
“I’m a loser with ‘RAPE’ tattooed on my knuckles, so how fucking far am I going to go?”