To be a Scumdog in the slave army of GWAR, you must abide by certain rules: 1) Bow before your space lords like the infernal humanoid scum that you are; 2) Serve the conquering masters of your small and puny planet with undying loyalty; and 3) Rise above your feeble genetics and develop a strong stomach because you will be showered with gobs of blood, semen and other nasty things whenever you approach all that is GWAR. The faint of heart need not apply. The religious right is not welcome. This is the code of the Scumdogs and GWAR wants you.
On Friday, Portland's brigade answered their masters' voice and packed the Roseland, clad in white t-shirts like a bunch of eggs ready to be cracked. The horror would come later, in fact, three bands down the line. Mobile Deathcamp's set was a regurgitation of everything that's already been done before - a cobbling together of metalisms that would have netted you a near-win at metal bingo, as it robbed you of your hope for something new. Some examples, you say? How about: the lead singer copied Evan's look from Biohazard (down to the bandana), they had a song about Vlad the Impaler called "Human Popsicles," and the squealing coming from the guitar was textbook Zakk Wylde. Admittedly, these chosen elements do not suggest that they lack taste; rather they put themselves in a dangerous position where they can't help but be judged against the people they are pilfering from and the people that have already pilfered before them and done a better job. Guess who won.
Speaking of metalisms, now we get to play the death metal version with Tampa, Floridians, Infernaeon. Before I give my opinion, a serious bias disclaimer: I grew up on metal, I love lots of forms of metal, but I have always hated death metal, so I'm not sure how Infernaeon could have ever gotten a fair shake from me. It didn't help that the lead singer looked like some long-haired, dorky brother straight out of a Todd Solondz film, the type that would be dropped off at the gig by a mother piloting a beat-up, wood paneled station wagon. Listening to him sing made me think of some bad Corrosion of Conformity song with its unintelligible gut-rumbles and snake-hiss screams. His band was made up of the stereotypical batch of hair-down-their-backs metal dudes who were actually quite proficient at their instruments and added a rhythmic counterpoint to the lead singer's dark mumbles. I must say though, as silly as the singer seemed to me (he was wearing a had-to-be-Hot-Topic shirt that said "Property of Satan"), I have to give them all credit for busting out a sick cover of Metallica's "Creeping Death." The "die! die! die!" breakdown was rowdy and made up for the tacky goat head that the lead singer brought out later, as well as all of his (extremely predictable) anti-religion speeches. Wait a second...BINGO!
NY street punk legends, The Casualties came next. The rainbow-striped, Kool-Aid-dyed (?) mohawk atop the guitarist on stage was right at home with the litany of spiky-haired, mangled-font, band-button-wearing souls out in the crowd. Kindred spirits rushed into each other as the music's tempo went from fast to ferocious in a crater-like pit that the majority of the audience had surrendered to those that prefer to bash their way through the program. Girls joined in, too, and made sure to girl-power a few guys in the face for good measure. The band encouraged this energy with their hardcore-siphoning vocals and the lyrical spew that the lead singer had glued together with those familiar themes punk has always held dear: the government sucks, let's get fucked up, outcasts uber alles. They were best when they incorporated melody into their songs - a thing that most hardcore bands love to take a detour from. What they don't realize (or don't care about) is that melody - even in miniscule doses - is actually the very thing that sustains most "classic" punk tracks. They often failed to do this though, so a lot of my time was spent fantasizing about how much I wish I had been able to see The Clash.
There was no mental straying when GWAR emerged from the shadows; the stage-show they cooked up for the Bloody Pit of Horror Tour made sure of that. From smoke came band and two convulsing ghouls that churned at the front of the stage. As his first offering to a clean-shirted clan of slaves, Oderus Urungus, lead singer of the group, took his broad sword (think Conan the Barbarian) and sliced at those pesky ghouls until a steady stream of "blood" (think fruit punch) came out of their decapitated heads and bathed the faithful followers. The crowd gave him the horns. The band took this opportunity to charge into what would be the guiding template for this evening's sound: thrash metal meets fantastical lyrics - told from the point of view of an evil alien. And honestly, that's almost all you need to hear about the music. It wasn't particularly incredible or earth-shattering in terms of virtuosity, and a lot of it bled together. However, with GWAR the music isn't really the main attraction, now is it? The production, and the creativity behind it, is what gives the band its staying power, and makes them a group that everyone should see at least once in their lives. Instead, the songs are vehicles that help the band to tell stories about all the provocative subject matter that has come to define them: domination, sex, murder, mayhem, and unethical space conquest. To see them as only a metal band would be missing the point, since the act they've created has grown into so much more than that. That said, GWAR could not function in any other universe than the one metal naturally creates - nothing else provides such heaping helpings of fantasy mixed with such heavy levels of thunderous space sludge. It's a match made in heaven; or if we are still playing metal bingo, hell.
Part of that act is to do or say "shocking" things and they did not disappoint. On top of being drenched by geysers of fake blood, the audience was also hosed down with gallons upon gallons of fake semen (which later turned into blood - gross), shot out of Oderus' gigantic cock piece. Bet the high-schoolers that got jacked in the face while crowd surfing aren't going to explain the source of that stain to their parents. Blood also shot out of a dead dog that was ceremonious mounted by Oderus after he said, "This song is dedicated to Michael Vick and the wonderful season he's having." Another band member held the carcass and let it gush like some deranged fire hydrant; he came back later to man an enormous ray gun with enough liquid reserves to keep the crowd drenched for an entire song. What's so impressive about all of this is how much liquid actually comes out. You wonder where they hide it all, as not everything spewing is as big as a ray gun. The crowd didn't seem to care as long as they got soaked, and frequently came out of the pit looking like extras in a low-budget horror movie (our photographer included).
Death was the name of the game. Not only did a character named SawBorg Destructo kill GWAR member, Bonesnapper the Cave Troll (who was later gutted and eaten by his friends in the band, only to be resurrected without explanation), but celebrities and political figures got theirs, too. Sarah Palin was disemboweled, then tried to strangle someone with her entrails (blood was naturally everywhere). Lady Gaga was also invited out for her turn. As a dig at her notoriously "arty" outfits, she was adorned in a dress that looked like a toilet. On top of her head sat a lump of shit...which she ate. Her breasts were later sliced off and even more blood was sacrificed to the crowd. I could go on, but I think you can see how it always ends... carnage for the masses. I couldn't help but think of my father during all of this and how horrified he would be watching it. It is in moments like these that you can see a staunch gap between the current generation and the older one. Why is it that people my age love to be grossed out? To be exposed to the type of scatological humor that wants to stomp all over taboos and precious PC buttons? Do questions like these really need to be asked when considering GWAR or can we leave it at they're badass and if you don't get that, you weren't welcome in the first place? Probably the latter.
Setlist:
Horror of Yig
Damnation Under God
Hail, Genocide!
Let Us Slay
Vlad The Impaler
Decay of Grandeur
Techno's Song
Crack In The Egg
Maggots
Bring Back The Bomb
Metal Metal Land
Pure As The Arctic Snow
Beat You To Death
Salaminizer
Zombies, March!
Come The Carnivore
A Gathering of Ghouls
Storm is Coming
Sick Of You
