GWAR 10-21-08
Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2008 1:26 pmTuesday night GWAR came to The New Daisy on Beale Street in Memphis TN. Being the curious bastard I am, a friend and I went and checked them out.
The first thing was the crowd its self. The kids in the know were all wearing white t shirts. I thought this is weird white with no markings. One fat guy with no shirt had on one of those burger king head mask, some guys had on the Viking horns, we referred to them all night as the horny guys, but honestly I dont think they were going to get anything with those horns. There were mo hawks, goths, all sorts of concert t-shirts you name it.
I wont mention the first 2 bands cause they were so awful that we went and played pool for a couple of hours. I guess GWAR believes in giving people their moneys worth, by having three opening acts, but in my opinion they could have cut at least one of them.
The last opener was a band called Kingdom Of Sorrow, and I hate to say it but I liked them. They played that Lamb Of God sounding stuff that my son likes and that I normally dont like but, something about the guitarist tone and the way the singer worked the crowd I liked. Musically they killed everyone on the evening including GWAR. The guitarist was from Corrosion Of Conformity and all the players in this band were from other know acts that Ive heard their names before. I give Kingdom Of Sorrow and A+, as I said I dont know exactly why but I liked them.
Then it was on to GWAR. They had a big video screen and 10 minutes til showtime this clock came on counting down to showtime. When it got to 10 seconds the crowd counted down like New Years or something. I liked that touch and might incorporate that into our stage show in the future.
Then this Martini MC character comes out and introduces the band, with a Steve Lyko lookalike there, of course the singer for GWAR immediately cuts off his head and blood spews everywhere. This is basically these guys whole show, spewing crap on the audience. I found the band itself to be the most boring and lame ass musicians Ive heard in a long time. The music was the typical detuned cookie monster crap you hear all the time, but it just had no spark to it. If these guys take off the suits I dont know why anyone would buy the music, it was that lame to me. Ussually I can find some redeeming value in anyones music, but I couldnt find it with these guys. Without the outfits I dont think they could get a gig.
The guitarist biggest thing was to walk around the corner of the stage and walk up these ramps on top of the amps, they would stay there for most of a song and then come back to their positions on stage. The bassist was the most active of the bunch as he probably covered half the stage. The singer kinda stayed in the middle while his hinchmen came out and sprayed the crowd with different spuirting devices, which eventually included a big penis looking thing.
Al thru the show they had these staged wrestling matches with different public figure like John McCain, Hillary Clinton, who at some point they would tear into them and they would spew blood or colored water all over the crowd. This explained the white t shirts, the 20 something crowd would mosh and basically get themselves soaked in what ever fluid they were squirting. I guess they will wear it to school like a badge of courage or something the next day. And believe me you needed real courage to get in the mosh pit at this event, it was so bad that when we left there were 3 ambulances out front tending to all the people who got hurt.
So what did I take away from this. Well if you dont like detuned cookie monster music, I would say stay away from these guys, it wasnt worth 22 dollars to me. But I did get some neat video lighting ideas from these guys. They had a lot of lights that would shine into the crowd, and illuminate them which I want to incorporate into our shows.
To finish it all I would say if you want to see a KISS/ALICE COOPER taken one step further rock show then check GWAR out at least once. Take fair warning thou, if you get within 30 feet of that stage you will get wet and pounded by the crowd.
The first thing was the crowd its self. The kids in the know were all wearing white t shirts. I thought this is weird white with no markings. One fat guy with no shirt had on one of those burger king head mask, some guys had on the Viking horns, we referred to them all night as the horny guys, but honestly I dont think they were going to get anything with those horns. There were mo hawks, goths, all sorts of concert t-shirts you name it.
I wont mention the first 2 bands cause they were so awful that we went and played pool for a couple of hours. I guess GWAR believes in giving people their moneys worth, by having three opening acts, but in my opinion they could have cut at least one of them.
The last opener was a band called Kingdom Of Sorrow, and I hate to say it but I liked them. They played that Lamb Of God sounding stuff that my son likes and that I normally dont like but, something about the guitarist tone and the way the singer worked the crowd I liked. Musically they killed everyone on the evening including GWAR. The guitarist was from Corrosion Of Conformity and all the players in this band were from other know acts that Ive heard their names before. I give Kingdom Of Sorrow and A+, as I said I dont know exactly why but I liked them.
Then it was on to GWAR. They had a big video screen and 10 minutes til showtime this clock came on counting down to showtime. When it got to 10 seconds the crowd counted down like New Years or something. I liked that touch and might incorporate that into our stage show in the future.
Then this Martini MC character comes out and introduces the band, with a Steve Lyko lookalike there, of course the singer for GWAR immediately cuts off his head and blood spews everywhere. This is basically these guys whole show, spewing crap on the audience. I found the band itself to be the most boring and lame ass musicians Ive heard in a long time. The music was the typical detuned cookie monster crap you hear all the time, but it just had no spark to it. If these guys take off the suits I dont know why anyone would buy the music, it was that lame to me. Ussually I can find some redeeming value in anyones music, but I couldnt find it with these guys. Without the outfits I dont think they could get a gig.
The guitarist biggest thing was to walk around the corner of the stage and walk up these ramps on top of the amps, they would stay there for most of a song and then come back to their positions on stage. The bassist was the most active of the bunch as he probably covered half the stage. The singer kinda stayed in the middle while his hinchmen came out and sprayed the crowd with different spuirting devices, which eventually included a big penis looking thing.
Al thru the show they had these staged wrestling matches with different public figure like John McCain, Hillary Clinton, who at some point they would tear into them and they would spew blood or colored water all over the crowd. This explained the white t shirts, the 20 something crowd would mosh and basically get themselves soaked in what ever fluid they were squirting. I guess they will wear it to school like a badge of courage or something the next day. And believe me you needed real courage to get in the mosh pit at this event, it was so bad that when we left there were 3 ambulances out front tending to all the people who got hurt.
So what did I take away from this. Well if you dont like detuned cookie monster music, I would say stay away from these guys, it wasnt worth 22 dollars to me. But I did get some neat video lighting ideas from these guys. They had a lot of lights that would shine into the crowd, and illuminate them which I want to incorporate into our shows.
To finish it all I would say if you want to see a KISS/ALICE COOPER taken one step further rock show then check GWAR out at least once. Take fair warning thou, if you get within 30 feet of that stage you will get wet and pounded by the crowd.
