Photo by Carrie Zukoksi
It may be the obligation of every curious music fan to see—at least once in their life—the messy, action-figure-ish, totally metal shenanigans of GWAR. The band, which has been touring for 30 years, lost its founder and leader Dave Brockie in 2014, but has soldiered on, sans original members (and anyway, who knows who's in those latex suits? GWAR was a rotating collective before Ghost's ever-revolving Nameless Ghouls/Papa(s) Emeritus(es) were even contemplating guitar riffs). Before we get to GWAR, though, the opening acts bear some mention. U.S. Bastards did a bang-up job of warming up the crowd with their driving beats. Singer Alex Story of Doyle prefaced every song with, "This song is a love song. You can dance to it if you want. Or I will." (By the end of the set, the audience got the joke.) Guitarist and band-namesake Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein (of The Misfits) recently suffered a detached retina, and missed a few shows prior to this gig at Pop's last Friday night—the audience seemed plenty happy to have him there, healed eyeball and all.
Ghoul's stage act included a character in costume who would come out and say things like "We're going to build a huuuuuge (a la Trump's pronunciation) wall—a wall of death!" The band mixed quite a lot of social commentary in its between-song patter via this character, who changed outfits between sets. It was at this point that the fake blood began to make an appearance, prepping the audience for the full-on tide of stage blood (and, um, other stuff) that is GWAR's trademark. In fact, at the end of the set, the audience was howling "We want blood!"
GWAR delivered, of course; in addition to those ginormous battle-armor costumes, the band is known for dousing its audiences in theatrical blood, and it might as well have been spraying it out through a firehouse from the first song on. It's tough to do justice to the experience of actually being in the crowd during a GWAR show, but it's basically organized mayhem, lots of heads banging in unison, body surfing, power chords...you get the picture. If you haven't seen GWAR and intend to tick them off your concerts-to-see list, have no fear...fake blood washes easily off your hair, skin, and even contact lenses. Clothing, however, is another story—so weigh out what you love more, your hardcore metal pride or your clothes, and if it's the latter, consider packing a cheap, disposable plastic rain poncho.
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Doyle
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