Kansas City Blog

GWAR's stage act and the band's relationship to its fans confound me. I wouldn't recommend the experience. But I wouldn't tell you not to buy tickets.

We need to get one thing out of the way right now. GWAR's music sucks. It has always sucked. It's boring, repetitive and cynical in its attempts to shock you with obvious, thoughtless lyrics. In the end, you're bored instead of outraged.

But focusing on GWAR's music misses the point. The point of GWAR has been, and ever will be, spectacle. At a GWAR show, you see crazy shit onstage and get hosed down with blood, semen and any other bodily fluid that can be sent screaming through a rubber hose.

In this regard, GWAR is a success. Lots of people were killed onstage. I knew Barack Obama was in trouble when the band brought out the president-elect and I saw that his head was made of papier-mâché. "Hillary Clinton" endured a double-mastectomy, and the bloody stumps spewed cold plasma into the crowd. Stand-ins for John McCain and George Bush were suspiciously spared. There were also lots of fights between monsters. For some reasons, Frank Sinatra music was played during lulls. It was impossible to get a single damn photo to come out right because the lighting shifted so wildly, you couldn't get a read on anything. It was a war zone.

Sadly, GWAR's act really isn't that interesting after the first 20 minutes. You've seen everything you're going to. It's like an old vaudeville comic throwing out zinger after zinger, till you're amazed by the steady rhythm but not the material. If comedy is about sustained commitment to an idea, the guys in GWAR are fucking geniuses.

Then there's the crowd. My worst concert experiences have always been at shows I expected to be mellow. For example: Beck at the Uptown was full of raging, shoving assholes. I've always thought this was because the crowds at metal shows — or "scumdogs," as GWAR fans are called — have an outlet for their aggression in the pit, and they have the music itself, so they are generally polite. Not this time. Women built like linebackers threw elbows. A guy dressed like Uncle Fester opened his mouth to me to expose plastic fangs with a look on his face that begged me in the most naked way to find him weird and scary and just a little menacing. I don't see the point of trying to freak people out when they're already attending the same concert you're attending. Save it for after the show and take a walk down to America's Pub.

In a category by herself was the masturbating woman. She wore a black dress and stood about five feet in front of me for most of the show, throwing herself around to "Crush, Kill, Destroy." Toward the end of the night, apparently overwhelmed with the power of GWAR'S message, she sat on the edge of the steps at the back end of the floor, hiked up her dress, spread her black-stockinged legs and dived in. I do now know what message I should take from that, but the image of this woman, who looked to be in her mid 30s, working away in a frenzy while boys in red syrup moshed and the band brandished snake dildos from their loincloths ... well, that pretty much sums up the night.

Which brings me back to the Beavis and Butthead video game. I'm not so sure that GWAR is in on Mike Judge's joke about dopes in Metallica and AC/DC shirts. The difference between thinking the idea of goat rape can be funny and wanting to rape a goat is a big one. GWAR has disturbed me, but not for the reasons I think the band intends. I am left only with these rambling impressions as I try to understand the world of the scumdog — and one lonely, scumdog woman.

Set List:
Eaten by a giant snake.

Critic's Notebook
Personal bias: For once, not much. I always wanted to see a GWAR show. Now I've seen a GWAR show.
Random detail: GWAR probably has a longer list of retired members than any other touring band.
By the way: After an absence of more than a decade, GWAR manager Sleazy P. Martini began touring with the band again just two months ago. He was the guy in the huge pompadour and gold chain announcing the onstage fights, all of which were to decide who got to kill 90 percent of humanity. Despite these promises, the world remains intact. So far.
— Peter Rugg