Archive for November, 2008
GWAR makes a mess of Hawkeye Downs
CEDAR RAPIDS — It looked like a massacre took place Sunday night at Hawkeye Downs Expo Center.
But it wasn’t a massacre. It was a GWAR show.
GWAR, the satirical thrash-metal band that’s been making gore-obsessed teenagers cheer and values-obsessed parents boo since 1985, doused everyone within 30 feet of the stage with gallon upon gallon of fake blood.
Since the show was part of GWAR’s Electile Dysfunction tour, most of the blood came squirting out of the severed appendages of actors dressed as John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (Sarah Palin and Joe Biden didn’t make the, ahem, cut).
While the politicians’ costumes were the stuff of a third-rate haunted house, with the actors heads hidden inside bulky shoulders with fake heads placed on top for easy decapitation, GWAR’s costumes were top notch, led by frontman Oderus Urungus’ scraggly red face and sword-encrusted shoulder pads.
Seeing GWAR on stage is quite a sight. The group’s five musicians look like they sprang out of the pages of an especially violent comic book. Their costumes make each person on stage look about twice as big as they really are, making it all the more impressive that they manage to play their instruments with so much ferocity.
While GWAR’s visuals and between-song antics were plenty of fun, the group’s music leaves plenty to be desired. Every song sounds pretty much the same, with the band playing at a frenzied clip and Urungus barking out unintelligible vocals.
One of the show’s opening band’s, Kingdom of Sorrow, displayed a style of music similar to GWAR. But Kingdom of Sorrow’s passionate take on thrash-metal was much more musically entertaining, and even inspired a massive mosh pit, which GWAR’s music did not.
Of course, GWAR fans might have just wanted to press toward the stage to make sure they’d get covered in fake blood. Urungus set the show’s mood after the first song, proclaiming that he wanted to eat a dead baby. Urungus didn’t say a whole lot more until just before the encore, when he called out Metallica as a band that needs to hang it up.
GWAR is a band that probably never will hang it up. Most of the group’s members are in their 40s, but GWAR’s costumes don’t age, so this probably won’t be the last time GWAR massacres Eastern Iowa.
Comedy, Bloody, Comedy: Killgore Resurrects at UCB
You gotta love shows that give you a poncho before you take your seat. The last time I was offered a complimentary rain slicker with my ticket was when hammer-wielding nutcase Gallagher came to town. While it’s true that a poncho can protect your physical body from bits of melon or in the case of Killgore, gushing fountains of fake blood, nothing can shield your mind. The Halloween splatterspectacle Killgore: The Resurrection was written by UCB founder Matt Walsh and directed by Anthony King. Walsh’s intent seems pretty clear: schlock for the stage that’s bloody, funny, and outrageously gross. I’ve seen GWAR live and watched enough camp horror films to know what kind of art humanity is capable of producing—so the way I see things, if you’re not going to go over the top with this genre, don’t bother going. That’s why I was pleased that in Killgore’s intro, a rude, yet affably antagonistic clown unwillingly lends his head to a game of home-run derby. As blood comically erupted and sputtered from a visible tube all over the pristine white set, I thought, “This is gonna be good!” Tall and menacing, Zach Woods plays Heironymous N. Thornbrush, a killer who systematically dispatches the goofy train of tards that somehow arrive at his home, doing so with the cool demeanor of Patrick Bateman. Using his victims vices against them, he hopes to complete a kill-spree checklist that will enable him to summon the terrifying hell-demon Killgore to destroy the world that wronged him. Murder highlights include death by licorice rope–used like dental floss between a fatso’s mouth and her splayed stomach–and a less than enjoyable meat beating for an adult entertainer. What pushes Thornbrush to such madness? We find out he was a former child star who no one wanted anymore once he turned 9. When you’re 8, everyone loves you. “Wait, you’re doing this because you’re upset about the natural act of aging?” asks the wheelchair bound Chris Gethard, a character whom Thornbrush had paid to eat alive. Yep, pretty much. As the play sloshes towards its deus ex machina, the set, the actors, and certain segments of the audience gets drenched in bodily fluids, vomit, and amniotic sac juice. By the time it’s over, Woods’ classy velour robe is soaked and he’s wearing a crimson mask that would make a pro-wrestler proud. Killgore: The Resurrection is bloody awesome.
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