Not many bands can say they need to set up plastic tarps to prepare for their shows. This past Thursday, November 2nd, found much of the Beaumont Club covered by just that. Most everybody knows GWAR's schtick: their costume-wearing characters play over-the-top thrash-metal, punctuated by ridiculous, taboo-ridden skits which involve plenty of washable stage blood being spewed on the always-eager audience. In metal circles, attending a GWAR show in a white t-shirt and breaking a few faces to gain front-row position has become something of a rite of passage. Surely, nobody went home disappointed.

When I found myself being compressed by a crowd already worked into a frenzy a good twenty minutes before the band played a note, I knew it wouldn't be a typical metal show. Once Oderus Urungus and the rest of the outfit took the stage, the front portion of the floor broke into vigorous motion and didn't stop until they walked off. Emerging from the backstage area, their costumes are pretty impressive at first glance; they're fairly elaborate, and make them something like eight or nine feet tall. As they blasted into their first song and fists began to fly, it became apparent that many people were not here for a good time - they were out for blood.

GWAR's show obviously hinges on their interaction with the pit. To an observer in the back of the club, the performance must have been lackluster. The costumes, while cool, are pretty lifeless and lose their novelty after a few songs, and the music is really nothing more than a combination of various thrash-metal clichés - their only distinguishable song is "Sick of You," and then only because of its pretty guitar intro. They walk the line between a metal band and performance art and fail to excel at being either.

The skits on this tour don't really break any new ground for the group, but are still enjoyable on a purely sophomoric level. The band's minions decaptitated, impaled, and otherwise maimed likenesses of Osama Bin Laden, Jesus, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, and George Bush, just to name a few, always resulting in plenty of gore and an enthusiastic response. Despite the figures' political ties, GWAR remains impressively neutral; they hate all mortals with equal ferocity. In addition to blood, characters spewed mock urine, semen, and God knows what else. Nobody seemed to mind too much.

Throughout the show, between shoves and punches to the stomach, I kept trying to determine how serious these guys are. I had never really considered GWAR a real band, yet judging by the number of people singing along, people actually listen to their albums. And while I always thought the whole thing was for laughs, not too many people seemed amused. The anger which GWAR's confrontational music and juvenile interludes seemed to kindle in a lot of metalheads was almost disturbing. I saw quite a few actual fights break out over the course of the night.

After the too-long set (they could have played a half hour shorter and I would have been satisfied), I left literally drenched in fake bodily fluids, with a cell phone broken in half, a few open wounds, and a bashed-out window on my car parked next door at the coffeehouse. I felt dirty, physically and morally. Despite what many people might tell you, GWAR, while they may induce a few chuckles, are no joke. They embody all the machismo, violence, and homoerotica of metal music and take them to their logical extreme, resulting in an experience that is comical for some, and, well, just plain angry for others.

-- Danny Giordano (email)