The Road
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The Road |
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!!! GWAR !!!Back in 1994, curiosity led me to a GWAR concert. For those of you who don't know, GWAR is a rock band dressed up like demons and stuff who play heavy metal. It's a hoot. In any event, here's a review of the experience I wrote afterwards:
Well, for those of you who are interested, here's a play-by-play of the GWAR concert -- certainly one of the most bizarre and twisted things I've ever seen: kind of like Dread Zeppelin, professional wrestling and the Feebles all mixed into one. The crowd was interesting -- mostly a mix of people between I'd guess 17 and 35 with a lot of grunge, gangbanger, and biker fashion. The opening bands were Buzzov-en, who sucked, and The Dickies, who were good (I think these are the same guys who did the theme song to "Killer Klowns from Outer Space", but I'm not sure). I couldn't make out anything that Buzzov-en sang, except that it was done in the scratchy barking style a la Metallica and seemed to consist mosty of profanity. The Dickies sang songs like "If Stewert Could Talk" (in which the lead singer used a hand-puppet of a penis -- Stewart) and "Gigantor". At I'd guess 11:30, GWAR came out in full regalia. The lead singer is supposedly named something like "Onerous Oblivion" and has a big demon's head and German soldier helmets (you know, the ones with the spikes on the top) as shoulder pads. He also has big clawed feet, and other than that, was wearing only a leather g-string with a LARGE penis attached to the front. The guitarists were dressed as a Roman gladiator (except, instead of a feathered crest on the open-faced helmet, it was all metal and spikes), a stegosaurus, and what looked like a buffalo with a bear-trap jaw. I couldn't see what the drummer looked like because he was behind all of the drums. There was also someone dressed up in leather domination stuff (named "The Sexecutioner", but in comparison, not very interesting to the rest of the band) and some demon-babe (also in a g-string and spikes) who were involved in the performance other than singing or playing an instrument, and a bunch of guys in bondage masks and g-strings who, I think, were the stage hands (they moved wires around, etc). *** If you're squeamish, stop reading now, 'cuz it gets pretty sick from here on! *** After the first song (which is typical heavy-metal fare, but much better than Buzzov-en), they have Round 1 of the "Frank Sinatra Intergalactic Championship". They had two phalllic posts in the middle of the stage, and set it up so that two thick cords could be stretched and hooked to the posts at either end (to simulate one side of a boxing/wrestling ring). While the band plays the next song, there's this big-time wrestling match between the demon-babe and the tag-team of OJ Simpson and Frank Sinatra in middle of the stage, behind the ropes. At some point, the demon-babe gets Frank in a headlock and rips his face off. Obviously, she really just rips his Frank mask off, but whoever it was had a bloody skull mask under it to make it look like she ripped his face off. To add to the realism (?), they rigged it somehow so that (fake) blood would spray out of the skull (it looked like it was coming out of the eyes, but I'm not sure). So, while the late Frank is writhing around and spraying the audience (at least, the ones in the mosh pit) with blood (which looked like fruit punch), the demon-babe gets attacked by OJ with a knife. Predictably, she escapes and wins the match by hitting the pseud-OJ in the head with an axe, which causes him to start spraying fruit punch all over the audience. After the end of the song, while Onerous is talking to the audience, the stage slaves drag the bodies of Frank and OJ off. Get the idea? The next song was about jacking off, during which Onerous masturbates his 2-foot long penis causing it to spew stuff all over the audience (same consistency as the blood from before, just a different color). Whatever they attached it to that made it spray had pretty good distance, 'cuz he got the people in the front-row seats as well as the moshers (and also the overhead lights, etc.). In case you're wondering, I was in the front row seats, but far away enough to not be spewed upon. Actually, they didn't spurt in our direction very often. That may have been because we were all standing on the seats or maybe it was a fire hazard (yeah, right). The second round of the Frank Sinatra Intergalactic Championship was between Onerous and The Sexecutioner as one team against two more rubes, one of whom was a woman very similar (mammarically speaking) to Heidi the Hippo from "Meet the Feebles" who was armed with a large double-dildo, which she twirled like nunchakus. Again, while the band played on, Onerous and the Sexecutioner mutilated the other team, ending in more blood spraying on the moshers. I'll skip the rest of the musical descriptions (just more head-banging stuff about GWAR's eventual total domination of the universe, of which winning the Frank Sinatra Intergalactic Championship was only a small part). The next atrocity was when a potbellied priest with a large cross came onstage denouncing GWAR for its evildoings. Obviously, this didn't last long. The do-gooder was chopped up (belly split open and guts ripped out -- more gore spraying the audience). After which, they up-ended the priest so his butt was in the air, and jammed the cross down his ass. At which point, Onerous gave a little soliloquy about "you know, we've done some really fucked up things before, but this is really over the edge. Maybe it's a metaphor for the corruption in mass-media religion or organized religion in general, or maybe it just means that IF YOU FUCK WITH GWAR, WE'LL SODOMIZE YOU AND RIP YOU TO SHREDS!!!" I thought it was funny, anyway! Round 4 had an evil alien scientist (complete with Igor) claiming that it had created the ultimate terror that could beat GWAR and take the championship belts (as well as vie for the total domination of the universe). The ultimate terror turns out to be a giant fanged vagina with hands. Actually, it was three people in a costume. One was the giant vagina (we're talking 10' tall, here) who controlled the opening and closing of the fanged orifice. The other two people were the hands (their feet, arms and heads positioned to be the fingers of the hands) which were connected to the vagina. So the whole thing sort of lurched across the stage towards Onerous, the Sexecutioner and the demon-babe. Eventually, the demon-babe cut off the hands with a large axe and then the rest of them beat up on the vagina, causing it to spew blood from its large clitoris (which ended in a demon's head) onto the audience. Round 5 began when Onerous dragged the guy who was selling t-shirts in the lobby on stage (it looked like the same guy, anyway). They beat up on him for awhile and the demon-babe draped him over of of the phallic posts and was whipping him with a large chain. Eventually, the guy says "You wouldn't do this if my brother were here!" At which point a big demonic thing with a huge meat tenderizor (4 or 5' long) as one hand comes on stage and starts beating up Onerous and the rest of GWAR (except the band, who keep playing throughout all of this). While GWAR is recuperating, the demon thing and the t-shirt guy leave, taking the Frank Sinatra Intergalactic Championship belts with them. Round 6 is between the challengers (the pathetic has-been GWAR) against the new champions Mondo Destructo (the t-shirt guy) and Techno Destructo (the demon guy). This time, the t-shirt guy comes out with a huge monkey wrench as one hand. So, they get in this big fight, during which Onerous and Mondo take turns singing. In authentic professional wrestling style, Mondo and Techno kick the shit out of GWAR and look like they're going to win, until the demon-babe comes on stage with a huge morningstar (spiked club) and beats the crap out of Mondo and Techno. Then GWAR left and then came back for their obligatory encore, after which Onerous gratuitously sprayed the audience with his penis for about 5 minutes (at the audience's insistance, of course). Then they left again and came back again for their final encore, in which they introduced their manager, who was dressed up in perfect Vegas Vinnie style (shiny black tight leather pants, glittery silver jacket, shades, and the foot-long Elvis hairdo). So he comes out singing some sort of game-show song, during which he stops at times and asks "contestants" questions like "Whatever became of Eddie Munster?" When the constestant inevitably got the answer wrong, they were disemboweled, spraying more gore on the audience. One of the questions was "How do you keep money from Courtney Love?" but, unfortunately, I couldn't make out what the answer was (enunciation is not one of GWAR's major concerns). But, when the contestant got the answer wrong, the manager guy shot him in the head with a shotgun, causing his head to explode (more blood, brains, etc.). Anyway, that was GWAR. I thought it was hilarious -- especially when Onerous said stuff like "why do you morons subject yourself to this shit every year?" and when he threw in lines from Steve Martin routines ("All I want is a little cooperation from the backstage crew!"). But I'm not sure how they could have passed this as an "all ages" show. As I was walking home, I heard some other fans talking about how "they're using cheaper blood now". Oh well, nobody's perfect! I also watched "Serial Mom" earlier that afternoon, so... it was a good day! |
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