GWAR, Every Time I Die, Warbeast
House Of Blues
November 19, 2011
Better than: a Pulsar action figure whose blood has congealed.
A cloaked Death character entered the House of Blues darkened stage set up like a castle littered with weapons and viscera. As theatrical metal band GWAR came on stage to station their instruments, vocalist Oderous Ungurus (Dave Brockie) decapitated Death's lawyer, spraying the first gallons of blood of the night into the audience.
GWAR's set at the House Of Blues ran through a litany of punk and metal songs while a rogue's gallery of monsters fought each other and the band onstage. A pterodactyl, a mutant scientest Biledriver throwing a barrel of toxic waste into the audience and a godzilla-voiced janitor with a duster for a hand were all part of the performance. It's a bit like Gallagher, except with blood and gore.
Side character Bonesnapper also offered up Snooki from Jersey Shore
to disembowel and dismember on a carriage. The show tastefully
acknowledged the band's recently departed guitarist Cory Smoot by
retiring his persona Flattus Maximus, as Oderous and the crowd pointed
up in the air towards Flattus' home planet.
The attempts at a moshpit by audience members on the crowded floor ended
up making a shoving pit, the least fun type of pit at a rock show.
The end of the set featured a final boss in the form of Sawborg, a
monster with a spinning circular saw for an arm. The encore featured the
"real" final boss, a large green maggot for the song "Maggots" that ate
up humans from the audience before being severed and spraying green
gore. The set ended with "Sick of You" as Oderous held up his giant
costume phallus and urinated into the audience.
Live shows with this much stagecraft usually leave behind some aspects
of the recorded sound GWAR was no exception. The band rushed through
songs that didn't have a stage theme, making it difficult to identify a
song until later. Brockie sung through his costume in rhythmic babble
resembling song lyrics, leaving most of the enunciation to the audience.
Every Time I Die opened with their mix of mathcore and hardcore metal.
The floor on Every Time Die' set contained more open moshpits and
younger listeners at the front. Vocalist Keith Buckley's took a few
moments to announce his 32nd birthday, promising to visit the Hooters
across the street.
DOMA 2011's Best Metal Act Warbeast started the night with their
throwback to Venom-style thrash metal. Bruce Corbit's gold microphone
stand split into a scepter-like handle as he barked, surprisingly, the
most comprehensible lyrics of the night. Guitarist Scott Shelby's
gauntlets and spiked vest evoked the genre and era other bands hint at
these days.
Critic's Notebook
Random Note: Having reviewed a bunch of shows with stage
theatrics this year crippled my patience for shows where musicians just
play music. Having seen GWAR, I now expect every show to have blasters
spraying liquid.
Stage Banter: "No matter how wasted we get, we're never gonna make a shitty album with Lou Reed" -Oderus
By the Way: I still don't understand guys who yell out "Slayerrr!!!" at every metal show. Does anyone ever tell them Slayer isn't there?
