Dearest Friends, you may laugh, but tonight I'm off to see GWAR. I'm not entirely sure why I'm going, but I think it's largely due to idle curiosity. I mean, their support crew has to mix up 30 gallons of fake blood for each show. That's got to be worth seeing, if only to say at cocktail parties that you have.
GWAR - Tormentor (buy here or e-here)
See Oderus Urungus and Beefcake the Mighty interviewed by Joan Rivers here. I couldn't make this stuff up.
EDIT: Friday, 1:19 AM. I just got in and am still trying to process what I just saw. It was the grandest of Grand Guignol, tasteless, gross, and OTT. There were decapitations. Avulsions. There was prosthetic onanism. President Bush got his skull split open. Fluids gushed aplenty. I was peed on by Oderus (at least I think it was pee) and spattered with "blood".
The music? Loud. Thrash. Metal. Unremarkable, to my taste, when standalone, but galvanizing in the live context. Oh, and Devin Townsend came onstage and sang a couple of songs with them. Apparently he means something to metalheadz. He has good lungs. And I had bags of fun.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Of Course You Realise This Means GWAR...
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16 comments:
call me jealous
I saw GWAR once. They were so loud I left the venue and promptly fell over in the car park.
Oh 30 gallons of fake blood and deafening noise!
Good times...Worth seeing though indeed.
Onanism...there's a word you don't see much anymore.
It's too bad you didn't have this pic at Halloween. It's very frightening. The look in the eyes...chilling!
Celine D. never peed on me, even in my most nightmarish dreams I must say.
GWAR!! Looks like you went through a gwar at the show, too! How many days worth of staining do you have on your face?
Not a pretty sight!
Love from a very chilly London
Banker by day GWAR metal head by night.
Ummm where did armadillo FiL go? You know the charming, kind, peaceful FiL who sleeps with Teddy and jammies?
But I have to say that I like this side of you, it is good to get loud and bloody every once in awhile...I don't know about the pee though. But Bush's skull splitting open sounds appealing.
Can't wait to hear the details after you have digested this very bloody experience. :)
Hi Bubba! Didn't GWAR play Ohio back in the summer?
Dearest Liz: Indeed, loud they were. But I'm going deaf anyway, thanks to a Ned's Atomic Dustbin gig some dozen years ago...
Dearest Mentok: No, one doesn't see that word around much. But I've been thinking that if ever I were to form my own metal band, I'd call it "Prosthetic Onanism." As for the look in the eyes, that's a combination of a) too little sleep, and b) taking the photo with my cellphone camera. I'm quite harmless, really...
Dearest ZB: I am so very glad to hear it!
Dearest Nats: I had showered that very morning. Honest!
Dearest T: Not a pretty sight - but was I ever??
Derest Rachel: *Sigh* I'm so confused. Fish or fowl? I can never decide. But Armadillo FiL is still and will always be here, fret not. In fact, after posting it was into my jim-jams (after washing my face, of course) and off to bed.
Now that I've digested it a bit, the whole show was, I must say, rather cartoonish. Don't get me wrong, it was QUITE the shock-schlock-rock spectacle, but GWAR are essentially a bunch of overgrown twelve-year-olds playing gross practical jokes. Yes, authority figures were crudely mocked, there was a lot of comic-book violence, and there was plenty of fake bodily fluids. But it was all too Looney Tunes to be taken seriously.
And for the record: the pee was just as fake as the water-plus-food-colouring blood. Just in case you were wondering.
That Finnish band that won the eurovision song contest wishes they were GWAR.
I cannot believe GWAR still exists!
I would totally go see them. It's like the Rocky Horror of rock.
GWAR is on my list of bands I need to see live at least once. Cartoonish and over the top---they're like Lucid Dementia on steroids. Just listening to CDs doesn't do it justice. I'm glad you had a blast at the show!
Mon ami - you look like the auto-cannibalistic dwarf from Hard Rock Zombies - which, come to think of it may be the true inspiration for GWAR.
I guess it's a good thing one of them didn't rip off his mask to show that he was really Hitler....
fil--i don't know if you care about this or not, but i just got an email announcing that my brightest diamond will be playing vancouver december 11, 2006 at st. james hall with devotchka!!!!!!! you need to go, trust me. : )
Dearest Bryce, you're spot on. Lordi are FinnCrisp, but GWAR is a big yummy foccacia drizzled in olive oil and, um, er, say, just what is that red stuff?? Still, it did my heart good to see Lordi turn Eurovision on its head. Plus my four-year-old son loves watching them on YouTube.
Dearest Cindy, I hope you get the chance to cross them off your list. They are playing Houston on 26 November, if you fancy a road trip... And I really must dig around your Stash to find out more about Lucid Dementia.
Dearest, Dearest Eliot, how I wish you could have been there! Indeed, the vibe was very "Hard Rock Zombies." As for Hitler, he actually did make an appearance on stage, I kid you not. No auto-cannibalism, however...
Dearest Marcy, many thanks for the heads-up! I will check my calendar.
having gone to college in richmond, va the GWAR HQ, i saw them more times than i even remember. the best part was leaving the show & walking around all GWAR-bloodied & strangers' reactions to it! oh we was crazay!
personally, my GWAR picks would've been "slaughterama" & "sexecutioner" but like, i guess this is YOUR blog & not mine :)
thanks for reminding me of younger days!
xo
c
oh fil. i just wanted to say thanks
it seems no matter what, whenever i see yr name upon a comment... i laugh. yr personality shows well :) its great
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