Hey everyone, this is your bi monthly concert update from your man around town, Scottie. Last night, GWAR rolled into Ziggy's in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as a part of their 20th anniversary tour. Heavy metal rock group GWAR is best known for their elaborate and grotesque stage acts where they dress up in enormous foam outfits ornated with spikes, swords, and other foam metal objects. In addition, they are notorious for spraying the audience with gallons of red and blue liquid squirting out of decapitated heads, organs, and even breasts as last night proved.
My group and I got to the venue around 9:00 as the first opening act was half way through. Ziggy's is located in one of the seediest parts of Winston-Salem. The building is nothing but plywood walls and a canvas roof, and if I just wanted to listen to the music, I could just as well sit outside the thin windows. The crowd inside is not my crowd, but it was entertaining nonetheless. People in the crowd were packed together so tightly there was little more than elbow room. They wore nothing but black and white shirts, had long hair and pale faces and drab attitudes when the music stopped, and pumping fists when it played on. Now, I'm a fan of heavy metal to an extent, but the first opening band was just too much.They had reached the point where their talent had become exhausted and they were just repeating the same style ad nauseum. Double bass petal, thumping bass guitar, and an inane guitar riff with angry bald guy screaming. Yada yada yada. My friend described it best when he motioned with his hand like he was jerking off. That band couldn't have ended quicker. The second band wasn't much better, but they did add a little variety with new syncopations and some better singing. The thing about these kinds of opening bands is that all they do is take up time before the main act and deafen the audience. I try to follow by the Airheads philosophy of loud music "if it's too loud, you're too old," but this was insane: walking outside was like walking into a weird, muted alternate universe.
But then GWAR hit the stage and performed the first act. They didn't wear their costumes at first, but still played good music. Everything is still deafeningly loud, but these guys had a handful of talent I could discern and the crowd ate it up. Everyone was crowd surfing, people were being thrown off balconies, mosh pits would take up a fifty person diameter, beer cans were being chucked around the audience and onto the stage, it was chaos. The stage security couldn't do anything to stop the crowd, only regulate the anarchy by pulling the surfers out before anyone got hurt. I got tossed into a few moshes and did my best to protect my face but there were some SERIOUS moshers in the pits. These people are built like tanks and when they start going and their elbows are flying, you don't want to get near them. But then again, no one could really get hurt, there just wasn't enough room for anyone to fall.
Finally the first act was over and we could all take a breather. I had to take my girlfriend to the car at this time because she couldn't enjoy the show. She's shorter than the average GWAR fan (I guess you could put it that way) and all she could see was the back of people's necks. Plus the smell of BO and cigarettes was overwhelming. It was sad to see her go, especially since the second I got back to my spot, they began again, this time in full costume
(http://www.jimstudnicki.com/_img/images/gwar_oderus.jpg)
he's called ODERUS
(http://www.jimstudnicki.com/_img/images/gwar_balsac.jpg)
this guy is called BALSAC, the JAWS OF DEATH
Their costumes are every Halloween masterpiece rolled into foam. Their outfits are built so well that minute motions of the body are registered as excessive, gaping movements. Everything was excessive. GWAR is just another word for excess. It was incredible. Despite that I had to stand on my tip toes to see over people, I still couldn't see everything that was going on. The whole stage was covered with activity, people blocking out what another might be doing, people running around, the crowd surfing continuing, more moshing swirling whirling around, the lights pulsating, strobing, utter chaos.
On stage, they have a variety of characters that come out and are invariably killed. Since this was their 20th anniversary tour, they promised to bring out some of their old characters. In the past they have killed anyone from celebrities to newsmakers such as Terry Schiavo, but this concert they first ripped out George Bush's guts which sprayed GWAR blood profusely. Second Dick Cheney came out, made a few lewd comments to the GWAR fans, and got his head chopped off with a seven foot foam sword. The head spewed blood profusely. Then Fran Drescher came out holding some kind of child which was taken away and ripped to shreds, and she had her breasts exposed, and then chooped off, which then spewed blood profusely.
After each character they would play one song while the aforementioned character's body was directed around the audience by a lacky, spraying everyone with the red red cruvy, soaking the people in the front, and staining everyone in the back. I was in the back and my white shirt got splattered expertly. When I get a pic of it, I'll post. It's beautiful. Finally, Michael Jackson came out holding a child, and he got his face ripped off, again spweing blood profusely. I can't even register how loud it is anymore. I've even given up trying to see the whole stage. All I care about is watching the flying blobs of blue and red blood coming out of the giant alien penis on stage and trying to keep it out of my eyes. The stuff stains bad, and by the end of the concert, my face and the faces of my friends were a bright red dye. Nearing the end, I was as Behrend Muller descibes it, on sensory overload. I had been beaten down with loud music, constant alien blood, the people around me, and it was already 1:20 in the morning. Can you imagine doing this every night as GWAR? Their encore was twenty more minutes long. Their final song was ten songs in one. Their final stage prop was an alien penis pumping out the blood by the gallons. When it was all over, I nearly collapsed. To make things worse, I found out my girlfriend had been accosted in the car by a bum trying to get into every car along the street. Plus, I had to drive an hour and a half back to school in Boone, NC.
GWAR was the most intense show I have ever been to. It will be a long time before I'm able to approach a heavy metal concert again. The constant beratings, the music, the people, the blood, it was almost too much. I think I'll stick to a less extreme form of rock next time. All you metal heads out there should do yourself a favor though, and GO SEE GWAR!!!
Post Edited (10-15-05 17:21)
Yeah alot of Metal heads say that their shows are INTENSE. I listen ot alot more punk than heavy metal so I never went to see GWAR. I have been to some intense punk show (not that any top GWAR) and punks who mosh still make the mistake of wearing hats,glass, anything with chains that can fall off. I usually wear my crappest clothes with my steel toe boots. Theirs a reasom why punks were combat boots. What always get me I have yet to see someone get seriously hurt.
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Most of all I hate dancing then work, exercise, people,stupid people
As for GWAR...I absolutely HATE their music.
It's just Bad Bad Bad...
(Yes, I have listened to some of their stuff)
They have almost NO MUSICAL TALENT in my opinion. They barely scrape by...
BUT....
I would see them in concert because I want to see THE SPECTACLE.
I wouldn't be paying attention to the music.
I'd be looking at all the crazy s**t going on onstage.
I'll give 'em that.
Post Edited (10-16-05 06:24)
GWAR is awesome. My favorite album from them is This Toilet Earth...that whole album rocks. From Sadam A Go Go to The Insidious Soliloquy of Skullhed Face (one of my favorites) all the way to The Obliteration of Flab Quarv 7 ("...as we flew through deep space, mutually disemboweling our victims...the navigator informed us that we had attacked...the wrong planet") this album kicks ass. The imagination involved in this and the songwriting with the way numerous styles are mixed, it's fantastic.
I have never seen GWAR on stage live although I have read plenty about them and I have a few of their full length movies, one of which has them live on stage. I was on the floor for a White Zombie show for a little while and after that, I know I would never be able to handle a GWAR show live. I'm too damn old and beat up. Something I think I missed out on seeing live, however, is Slymenstra's "fire dance". I think she's hot (in a strange way) and seeing that dance on the video makes me know that I should've seen it live. She's still doing stage shows with them, right?
GWAR!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, I know nothing of their music and hadn't heard of them before now, but I just felt like a loud shout seemed appropriate after reading Scottie's review...
Scottie,
Man I love Ziggy's. I live down near Morehead City in NC and we used to have a Ziggys here at Atlantic Beach. The place was kickass. I saw The Pietasters there once, and caught a few metal shows a couple of other times.
I would have loved to have seen GWAR. I had considered checking them out at the House Of Blues in Myrtle Beach this month but my wife would have murdered me if I had boughten tickets.
It's great to see the guys from GWAR rockin after all of this time. Thanks for the concert review. Wish I could have seen them.