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It was perfect. A throng of sullen faced youths sucking desperately on cigarettes, dejectedly shifting from foot to foot. Their pallid bodies shielded from the cold drizzle by odd costumes indicating their "individuality" -- black tee-shirts advertising hardcore bands, long greased locks, piercings and tattoos.
The collection of miscreants had come together with a single purpose. They were there to genuflect at the alter of rock spectacle. They were there to worship a band even more outrageously costumed than they themselves, GWAR.
GWAR is a venerable performance art band that does its best to offend its audience on as many levels as possible. Equal parts Dada, Spinal Tap, and Sex Pistols, the band is at once a beloved symbol of suburban angst and the last bastion of farce.
The legend of the band goes something like this:
"At least one hundred years ago, the Master Of All Reality took a shit and thus the universe was born. But that was not enough. He had to wipe, and what better way to wipe then with war. So he created the Scumdogs of the universe, and ultra elite group of warriors especially culled from the lowest dregs of filth ... chaotic and disease-ridden beings who would come to be known as GWAR!"
A collection of twisted art students from Virginia Commonwealth University, the band gave birth to a gory satirical stage show/marketing phenomenon consisting of a coterie of all-powerful interplanetary gladiators bent on the rape and destruction of mankind. The group performs in elaborate latex and papier-mGchT costumes, staging faux pagan rituals, featuring scatological buffoonery and gaping orifices that spew water-soluble bodily fluids. The experience is not unlike a really evil Gallagher show in which the medium is genitalia instead of water melons.
Like a mad clock maker, GWAR has been in ceaselessly perpetuating their invention for the better part of ten years.
Once inside the club, the fans took their place, eagerly awaiting the food-colored secretions that were to flow from onstage. I saw them there, some staggering, some with the darting eyes and jittery demeanor of the acid head. I was safely backstage, and having just come from an interview with a surprisingly approachable Oderus Urungus (A.K.A David Brockie), I was infinitely more horrified by the crowd than by the cannibalistic space mooks onstage.
The crowd was strictly segregated according to the level at which the fan was enjoying the show.
Up front were the more brutish types that sought to feed off of the blood, violence and anger that the band's lyrics and actions celebrated. This group thrashed around with abandon screaming "GWAR!!" at the top of their lungs, throwing up heavy metal hand signs and trying to bash their neighbors into oblivion. They were willfully transfixed by the illusion of complete chaos.
This is not what is remarkable about a GWAR show. The remarkable thing is the enormous lengths that the band goes to in order to create their particular illusion. Most bands need only words and instruments to capture the imagination of their fans, GWAR needs a full-on production. Backstage I saw the show from the trenches. Through the cracks in the set I saw a mass of screaming and laughing fans, reveling in the story that was unfolding in front of them. A colossal Tyrannosaurus Rex attempting to rend the bass player limb from limb, a troop of mutant penguins meeting a grisly end at the hands of a large buzz saw wielded by a g-string clad GWAR Slave. That was the illusion.
Behind the scenes was the reality. The small troop of GWAR Slaves kept the performance running at its fevered pitch. They spent the show readying the latex masks and body suits for the myriad costume changes. They pumped the various fluids out of large, belching canisters of CO2. They readied grotesque marionettes for use on stage. When GWAR Slaves trundled out onto stage to partake in the action, they affected the subservient posture of a mindless servant. As they came off, they took on the morose expressions of individuals involved in back-breaking labor. They grimaced and grunted as they battled the sweat-stained costumes. One could imagine how the task could became torture when performed nightly over the course of several years. In short, there was no joy in it. A weird concept when compared with the unabashed exaltation of the audience.
The disparity between the theatrical hell taking place onstage and the mindless zeal of that crowd that enjoyed it was a little surreal. Here was a band working phenomenally hard to create an empty absurdist experience for a crowd that could only accept it on its most base level. It seemed tragic. And when coupled with the fact that the band payed each member only twenty dollars a day for their toil, the gap between reality and perception widened.
After a decade of tours and albums, the band has failed to achieve any form of mainstream success. They've witnessed bands of lesser talent and more benign shtick go on to be millionaires, even national treasures (Marylin Manson and Kiss). They are feeding off of their last reserves of notoriety before they are dragged kicking and screaming out of the lime light.
In the interview before the show, David Brockie inadvertently supported this revelation. Brockie masterfully peppered his responses with the bitter rhetoric of one who has sniffed pending doom.
(read this in your best monster voice) "Marilyn Manson - aww! That posied hack! I'm just trying to draw him into direct confrontation with me. Everywhere I look, he's getting all the press, he's getting all the money, he's selling all the records. Quite frankly I'm outraged and jealous! I've been sucking off kids onstage for 100 years!"
In every jest, there is a vein of truth. I laughed my ass off when I heard it, but like the kids in the crowd, I failed to realize the reality of the situation. Such is GWAR. The band is intended to be taken at face value for the hilarious potty humorists that they are. They aim to hide the blood, sweat and tears that are required to make their illusion come to life. But in the end they are a troop of worn-out performers seeking a larger audience, largely under-appreciated for what they do.
As a finale to my interview with the band, I was led out on to the stage, drenched in fake blood and thrown into an enormous meat grinder. As I ducked to avoid braining myself on the top of the tiny entrance hole, Oderous screamed, "Get in there you faggot!!" I did so quickly, propelled by the howls of 1,200 blood-hungry GWAR fans.
I took inventory of my "blood-soaked" appendages and realized that, for a moment, I had actually feared for my safety. This fact, the fact that GWAR helped me briefly suspend reality, made it all worth it. It was a simple concept, really. And as I looked back at the crowd bellowing for more sacrifices, I realized that they had known it all along.
Brandon Barber (brandonb@jamtv.com)