Dead to the World Tour
[10][11][12] A year later, Reagan-era Secretary of Education William Bennett feared contemporary pop culture had become a corrupt influence that turned American youth away from traditional values and co-founded the Conservative advocacy group Empower America (now known as FreedomWorks).
Similar to the non-partisan Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), Empower America sought to discourage what it deemed objectionable entertainment by passing legislation to punish the media companies promoting them.
[16] The authors argued the pop culture of the 1990s had turned the Millennial cohort (especially children of color) into an ultraviolent breed of amoral "superpredators"—"fatherless, Godless, and jobless" youths that are "radically impulsive, [and] brutally remorseless".
[7][19] The book sparked panic and provoked the introduction of H.R.3565 - Violent Youth Predator Act of 1996 before the 104th United States Congress by Rep. Bill McCollum of Florida and cosponsored by 19 Republicans and 2 Democrats.
[24][25] The band grudgingly agreed to fulfill their contractual obligation to promote the record, a little over a month prior to release, by performing on the second evening of the final leg of Nine Inch Nails' Self Destruct Tour at the Irving Plaza, on September 5, 1996.
[33] Manson often wore his signature costume consisting of an elastic back brace, a jockstrap over a G-string, sheer stockings, leather straps around his calves and heavy-soled black shoes.
In his autobiography The Long Hard Road Out of Hell, Manson described the performance as simultaneously both social commentary and self-critique meant to highlight the thin line between celebrity and demagoguery.
During the band's performance at New Jersey's Asbury Park Convention Hall on Halloween, rumor circulated that Manson intended to commit suicide on stage in front of a live audience.
On December 11, 1996 William Bennett organized a bipartisan press conference, along with Senator Joseph Lieberman and Secretary of Pennsylvania State C. Delores Tucker, wherein they questioned MCA—the owner of Interscope—president Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s ability to head the label competently whilst profiting from "profanity-laced" albums by artists such as Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Marilyn Manson.
Snoop Dogg was also on tour in England to promote his own 1996 album Tha Doggfather and was first introduced to Manson at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards by a representative for Interscope Records.
[55] The stage design consisted of a stained glass tableau that depicted Saint Michael the Archangel slaying the dragon during the War in Heaven from the 9th verse of the twelfth chapter of the Book of Revelation, a pipe organ and a fog machine.
[55] L7 opened the show and Marilyn Manson played an hour long set which included "Angel with Scabbed Wings", "Organ Grinder", "Get Your Gunn", "The Reflecting God", "The Beautiful People", and "Irresponsible Hate Anthem.
Manson, wearing a preacher's suit, stood at a black and red rostrum emblazoned with the Antichrist Superstar 'shock' logo while tearing pages from a Bible (which some local outlets mistook for another Book of Mormon).
[58] The band's February 2 concert at the Pan American Center on the campus of the New Mexico State University in Las Cruces was cancelled on January 31, 1997 due to the venue's inability to provide ample security for the event.
[59] From what I have learned of the content of their lyrics and message as well as their conduct on stage, they are clearly bent on degrading women, religion and decency, while promoting satanic worship, child abuse and drug use.
"[76] Later that evening, Manson recalled in his tour diary a phone call from his father, Hugh Angus Warner, who recently saw an episode of Real Stories of the Highway Patrol taped the same week the band was in Florida.
[81] The next day, Manson and Ramirez announced they had entered studio sessions with Rasputina to record a remix of the latter's song "Transylvanian Concubine" off of their debut release Thanks for the Ether and had been enjoying a congenial working relationship during the tour.
[84] The NJSEA demanded the band and Pantera stricken off the roster before they would sell tickets for the June 15, 1997 show and triggered a contract clause that afforded them the "opportunity to omit any performer from the bill under certain circumstances.
Cambria immediately filed a freedom of speech lawsuit against the NJSEA on behalf of Manson and concert promoters Delsener/Slater Enterprises Ltd. and Artie Festival Inc.[79] That evening, the tour's Winston-Salem stop at the Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum saw protesters from twenty Piedmont Triad churches hold prayer vigils outside of the venue.
"[88][90] Three days later on April 24, 1997 plaintiffs Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, Delsener/Slater Enterprises Ltd. and Artie Festival Inc. consolidated their lawsuits against the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority (NJSEA).
The Richmond Times-Dispatch described the show as "one of the starkest culture clashes in Coliseum history"[90] The Arena leg of the tour ended with a performance at the Blockbuster Sony E-Centre in Camden, New Jersey on May 11, 1997.
Six days later, the NJSEA officially abandoned plans to appeal the ruling and allowed tickets for the June 15, 1997 Ozzfest show at the Giants Stadium to go on sale, with Manson on the bill, on May 17, 1997 for US$40 (equivalent to US$76 in 2023).
MuchMusic's FAX reported the police warned Manson and his entourage backstage that if the band performed their rendition of Patti Smith's song "Rock N Roll Nigger", the frontman would be arrested for "promoting racial disharmony" under Canada's Hate speech laws.
"[115] In another heated exchange, Garth recounted refusing jobs that involved profanity, indecency or immorality (which she characterized as "spread[ing] my legs for any ol' Joe") due to her moral standards.
[51] Preceded by a marching band playing "Hail to the Chief", Manson entered the stage in a full-body black fur coat flanked by mock United States Secret Service agents,[51] and delivered a speech to the audience of Hollywood celebrities from a microphone-covered lectern emblazoned with the phrase 'Antichrist Superstar' in classical Latin script and the band's 'shock' logo fashioned to look like the seal of the president of the United States: My fellow Americans, we will no longer be oppressed by the fascism of Christianity.
[126] Eight days after the end of the tour former guitarist, Scott Putesky (aka Daisy Berkowitz), filed a lawsuit against the band, their lawyer, Nothing Records and the frontman for breach of contract and legal malpractice.
"[56] Scott Iwasaki of Deseret News shared similar sentiment going so far as to describe Manson as "the pretentious prince of industrial metal", the band as "uninspiring", and the bible-tearing portion of the performance, "been there, done that.
He's overtly rhetorical, constantly striving to influence his audience and uses his theatrics to implant within them the germ of his Satanic philosophy, which afterall is really a more colorful version of good ol' atheistic existentialism a la Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus.
This theme was exemplified in Manson's forlorn reading of "Man That You Fear" at the show's conclusion, standing, as he was, alone at center stage, slowly buried beneath a barrage of artificial snow.
In a world in which the anaesthetized, TV-fed masses wait to be told what to think by slimy politicians, hypocritical religious leaders and conniving corporations, Manson's true sin is to posit the notion that all of these people are full of shit, that the only way to live an authentic life is to take away their reins of power and remake yourself in your own image.
