Gwar in Sioux City: November 4, 2017

Well, I finally had occasion to see Gwar over the weekend.  I have missed out on several opportunities in the past to see them, but I decided that it was not going to happen again.  Of course it is a little disappointing to see them without the great Oderus Urungus fronting the band, but Blothar still does a pretty damn good job.  This concert occurred at the Hard Rock Casino in Sioux City, Iowa a venue I have not previously been to.  My wife was a little interested in this one too, given Gwar's theatricality.

The opening band was U.S. Bastards, a band fronted by Gwar guitarist Brent Purgason, aka Pustulus Maximus.  Their style is drenched in dirty, raw, Motorhead-influenced punk rock 'n roll.  To drive the point home, they even covered the Motorhead classic "Killed by Death".  I enjoyed them quite a bit more than I thought that I would honestly.  I am not sure my wife agreed.  She did not look up from her phone once during their set.

Up next was Doyle, a band named for bandleader, former Misfits guitarist and certified gigantic human being Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein.  Misfits were a rarity, a punk band that I truly loved listening to, due to their infectious songs, presence of Glenn Danzig, and crossing over into metal on occasion.  Their later material with Michale Graves was very close to metal and Doyle's solo band continued in this style.  Oh, there is still quite a bit of horror punk, but a lot of metal riffing as well.  Singer Alex Story introduced almost every song with "This next song is a bit of a love song, you can dance to it, if you like", a joke which got a little old after about the third time.  My wife liked Doyle, the guitarist, for reasons other than his musicianship.

Ghoul came next, and honestly I was more excited to see them than Gwar.  I just generally enjoy their music more.  This is where things got more theatrical as two people in costumes began doing a skit about finding some sort of portal to another dimension and talking specifically about the band, who then showed up, complete with burlap masks covered in blood over their faces and decapitating one of the people, spraying the crowd with blood.  Some of the prop usage left a bit to be desired.  One of the "soldiers" clearly had no idea how guns were supposed to work.  The show went on like this, eventually peaking with a Nazi-esque leader discussing building a "bigly wall" to keep out all the aliens before beating one of the Ghoul members with a nightstick.  Yes, the music was damn fun too.  Ghoul's sound is a mix of thrash and grind with very few moments of melody.

Gwar was next on the stage and they delivered exactly what I was expecting.  Lots of costumes, some sick humor, lots of body mutilation and fake blood spraying into the crowd, and some damn catchy songs.  They played a lot of material from the new album, but peppered in classics like "Black and Huge" and "Saddam A Go-Go".  Gwar brought out a Trump character as well, before disemboweling him and Blothar taking over as President of the United States.  About the only down side was that Gwar no longer feeds the World Maggot on stage.  But they still put on one hell of an entertaining show all the same.

This show was a lot of fun.  I am not a huge fan of any of the bands for their music, but Gwar and Ghoul in particular are bands that must be experienced live.  I am definitely glad we had the chance to go.  My wife enjoyed it quite a bit as well.

Halloween Playlist

It's Halloween! What am I listening to today, hmm?

NECROVORE: UNRELEASED EVIL
To start things off today, I picked Necrovore. Not a terribly frightening band or album, although it is extremely aggressive, powerful, and deals with death and the occult. Necrovore is the original Texas black metal band and has influenced countless other bands, including Thornspawn, Averse Sefira, Absu, and other gritty, dirty sounding bands from the state. The band also had a huge influence on the development of death metal and American black metal. Not bad for a band that only released one demo made up of four songs. This is a potentially unofficial bootleg of that demo and the band's rare recordings and live performance.

DANZIG: THRALL-DEMONSWEATLIVE
In my car, I have the EP from Danzig playing. Danzig has always been one of my favorite more ghoulish metal acts. The occultism in his lyrics is clear and the music is dark and forbidding. This EP featured the live version of "Mother" which turned out to be Danzig's biggest hit in mainstream music. It's not his best song, but it definitely won over a ton of fans. Many of whom remain fans today. Unfortunately, Danzig was never really able to match that success again and his music has declined a bit since his first three albums.

GWAR: RAGNAROK
Metal's ultimate costumed fiends. Gwar has built up quite a story behind their stage show and characters. The band even features frequent celebrity "executions" on stage, including Paris Hilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The band seldomly appears in public out of character. Good stuff.

MERCYFUL FATE: MELISSA
I had to get this one in, it had been awhile since I have had a chance to listen to it and it is one of the ultimate scary albums to listen to this time of year. I've written about it earlier this week, so I will refrain from going much further into it.

DANZIG II: LUCIFUGE
Again with Danzig. As mentioned earlier, this is pretty much perfect music for Halloween. Dark sounding with Danzig's trademarked vocals which sound like a demented, evil Elvis or Jim Morrison. Plus the occult lyrics fit in well.

FORCE OF EVIL: BLACK EMPIRE
This was discussed at length on Sunday. The horror movie references are too much to pass up.

MAYHEM: DE MYSTERIIS DOM SATHANAS
This was also discussed last weekend in my post on frightening albums.

THORNAFIRE: VOREX DECONSTRUCCION
This one's new. Death metal the way it should fucking be. Thornafire is one of my favorite newer bands and they play old school death metal in the vein of Morbid Angel, Incantation, Immolation, and Death. The dark atmosphere and frightening album cover make this a must-play on Halloween.

In Honor of Halloween: Live Bands

Today, I am looking at groups with horror-themed live performances. They may either utilize props or costumes. These videos pretty much speak for themselves, so I will save commentary this time out.

WHITE ZOMBIE


GWAR


GORGOROTH


GHOUL


MAYHEM


IRON MAIDEN

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 7: Gwar: Ragnarok

Next up in this series is Gwar's Ragnarok. This one is kind of weird. Gwar has never really been a band to take seriously. They tend to be more interested in shocking people and putting on a show than putting together great albums. This album is no exception as it contains many different influences other than metal. Gwar is not one of my favorite bands, although seeing them in concert would be interesting. Many of the riffs are fairly simple and as mentioned earlier there are influences from surf, punk, and even hip hop here. The lyrics are mostly somewhat humorous, detailing more tales of the alien alter-egos of the band. There are some very memorable sngs such as "Meat Sandwich", "Warghoul", and "Nudged". Ultimately though, this album is such an odd collection that it is not truly easy to listen to.