It has been a Halloween tradition for years that Gwar lands on our planet and performs in Chicago and this year was no different as the band returned once again to the House of Blues. The ornate interior of the venue was wrapped in plastic for the occasion as the club was packed full with fans ready to get drenched in blood and other bodily fluids. The band put together a nice little three-band bill for this year’s tour.
A band that couldn’t be bothered to do a simple google search when picking their band name to know it had already been taken by a really good 1980s Japanese hardcore band, Ghoul, took the stage bright and early at 6pm. They all took the stage wearing masks and looked like something out of a slasher film. While their choice of a band name wasn’t original, they at least had good taste in influences and played some really tight and heavy thrash metal with growled vocals. They had chunky riffs and aggressively paced songs and put on a good and tight set. They also would occasionally borrow a page from Gwar’s playbook and had a couple of costumed characters come out on stage to fight or spray some blood into the crowd. They played about a half an hour and it was a good time.
Ghoul
Every Time I Die came out on stage one by one as an announcer introduced each member of the band. They were each dressed in small swim trunks and looked like they were Chippendales Dancers as they pranced out on stage. It was quite humorous and their singer announced they forgot it was Halloween as every day on this tour is like Halloween so they had to improvise for costumes. They immediately proceeded to pummel the audience with their intense and punishing metallic technical hardcore. They were so intense and heavy it was intimidating and the crowd went insane. The band played a bunch of newer songs and threw in some older classics as well and put on an amazing performance. Don’t be surprised if these guys start headlining these kinds of shows soon.
Every Time I Die
When the stage was set for Gwar to take the stage, a skull-headed character in a cloak came out on stage and introduced himself as Death. Death had plans to destroy Gwar and was soon joined by one of his minions who was given a deed to a castle in order to take out Gwar. This didn’t sit well with the band and the minion was promptly beheaded and sprayed blood all over everywhere for the entirety of the first song, “Zombies March”. Things were a little quiet for the second song as no one came out to attack the band but that changed during “Storm is Coming” when a giant creature took the stage and terrorized Gwar. Oderus locked up with him and after a bit of scuffling, ripped off the creature’s head. The four-legged behemoth flailed about like, well like a creature with its head cut off, and sprayed copious amounts of blood that drenched the first third of the audience. As if this fluid assault wasn’t enough, a couple of Gwar’s slaves had a bucket and filled it with the creatures blood and dumped it all over the crowd up front. It was a massacre of epic proportions!
Celebrities weren’t exempt from this year’s massacre as they wheeled out Snooki from that ridiculous Jersey Shore show and promptly cut her to bits. She sprayed blood from multiple orifices much to the delight of the entire audience. Of all the Gwar celebrity massacres, this one was one of the most satisfying in recent years. After this the band went dry for a few songs and just when it was starting to feel like perhaps America’s recession was also being felt on a larger, intergalactic scale, Death made another appearance to confront Gwar for the last time.
When Death returned to the stage, he revealed his true form which turned out to be Sawborg Destructo! Sawborg has spent years terrorizing Gwar, likely to avenge the alleged death of Techno Destructo at the hands of Oderus in the Art-fag wars of the 21st century. Sawborg fired up his sawblade hand and did battle with the Gwar slave that looks like a turtle. Sawborg had the upper hand early, then when the turtle went for his big babyface comeback spot, Sawborg no-sold all of the turtle’s moves and then sawed off all the turtle’s limbs. The poor little guy bled like a stuck pig on blood thinning meds as the House of Blues was drenched in blood.
Gwar slaves and Oderus rallied and fought with Sawborg and one of them ripped off his saw blade arm and used it against him and they eventually sent him running for the hills. This concluded the main set of the show which easily lasted an hour. It was a lot of blood-drenched fun. When the band came out again, a giant maggot creature came alive that was camping out under the drum set and the band fed it some ladies from the audience. Since the ladies were thin and the only meat on their bones was their boobs, the maggot was clearly still hungry and started gnawing on the limbs of the slaves who were forced to take him down, resulting in a giant bloodbath that eclipsed all the ones that preceded it that evening. This must have excited Oderus as his giant apparatus started spewing blood, which must be a sign that he picked up some sort of intergalactic venereal disease as even space cocks aren’t supposed to be shooting blood. When every last vein was tapped of all its blood, the band left the stage for good and the soaked audience filed out of the club early enough to still have some Halloween hijinks of their own.
Gwar (click thumbnails to see full images)
Another Halloween has come and gone complete with another stellar Gwar performance. Here’s looking forward to next year’s massacre!
Check out additional photos from this show here!
