Concert Review: GWAR (CLEVELAND, OH; 11.01.24)

GWAR brought their unique blend of gore, stage production, shock, and old-school thrash metal to Cleveland’s Agora theater Friday (11.01.2024) night. 

The newly formed opening band, Squid Pisser, set the tone with their hardcore sound, creepy masks, and weird stage presence. They started by having the drummer come to the front of the stage and stand still in a grotesque mask, the words “Help Me” scrawled in large letters across his chest. They were clearly there to set up the shocking elements of the evening. “This is all the semen we could collect,” the lead singer said at one point, holding up a beer pitcher of water and then throwing it on the crowd. As an aside, the lead singer smelled so strongly of body odor that ONE could smell it from the front row when he was on stage. He eventually went into the crowd multiple times, not near the crowd or to the front, but all the way through the pit and into the back. 

Several other highlights from Squid Pisser were a “Song was about ejaculating into God’s asshole,” and then “[D]elicately sucking all the cum out of God’s asshole.” Then the lead singer would say something like “We’re Squid Pisser, from Los Angeles. Thanks for being here tonight” in what had to be an intentionally overly wholesome tone. 

The second opener, Sweden’s Dark Funeral, on the other hand, has “Been doing this for 30 fucking years,” according to the lead singer Andreas Vingbäck. Their sound was more of the classic 80s death metal. They even had a “Hail Satan,” chant later in their set, the crowd fully playing along. It was oddly nostalgic to hear, but the phrase just doesn’t have the sting it once did during the Satanic panic years of the 80s, though. They were a nice lead into GWAR, as the older death metal sound was closer to GWAR’s. 

While waiting for the GWAR to come on stage, the speakers played a slew of “meme” songs. “Gangnam Style,” “America, Fuck Yeah,” “Never Gonna Give You Up,” “Scatman,” and many others played. Still, the funny part was that as soon as each of these songs got to the catchy, singable chorus, the music would cut, and the next song would start, leaving the crowd unsatisfied. It was probably the most fun I’ve seen a crowd have waiting for the band to go on.

While this was happening, stagehands, dressed as human slaves, set up the for the big show. One stood at the side of the stage in a loincloth, his gut hanging out, with a giant pair of fake swinging testicles hanging down between his legs. He would stop and swing them back and forth. It was going to be a wild night. 

Then there was an announcement over the speaker about the presidential election coming up, as grotesque versions of both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris came onto the stage just before the band to battle one another. After some overtly sexist and derogatory remarks about the candidates, they began to fight. Fittingly, the band opened with their 2017 song “El Presidente.” As the battle started, Balsac the Jaws of Death (Mike Derks) sang lead vocals. As the song played, Kamala stepped to the front of the stage, turned around, pulled down her pants, and sprayed a brown substance all over the crowd. Then the band ripped Trump open and disemboweled him, spraying fake blook all over the crowd. This was just the beginning of the night and themes to come.

If you aren’t familiar with GWAR, you might be asking yourself, “what the hell is going on?” That’s a fair question. GWAR has been known to push the envelope and offend audiences since its founding in the mid-80s. And offend they do. One would think it’s pretty difficult to get away with the things they do in their act nowadays, but they somehow still carry on, making references to Kamala’s “junk in the trunk” and decapitating a zombie President Lincoln, claiming they wished we could go back to the days when we had slaves. 

They seem to get away with this sort of thing for a few reasons. The first is that it’s obviously satire, as insensitive as it is. The second is that they can ingeniously hide behind their mythology. GWAR isn’t a band of humans. No, they’re from the planet Uranus and were sent here prior to humans existing. In fact, they gave rise to humans by mating with apes. Another reason is that they still operate under the idea of equal opportunity offensiveness. That is, they lampoon all types of beliefs. They aren’t one side or the other, their anti-government, anti-religion, anti-everything altogether. 

GWAR has also been sacrificing presidents since the band’s founding, and it was just a few days from the presidential election, so of course this was going to be an election-themed show. Next up was Obama. Here, they did make reference to the fact that it was a black man in America minding his own business. So naturally, they shouted, “Get him,” before grabbing and decapitating him, spraying more blood on the crowd. All this was happening as the band played “Happy Death-Day,” Beefcake the Mighty (Casey Orr) on vocals this time. 

The lineup has changed so many times that it’s pretty difficult to keep track of, but it doesn’t really matter. The band is really about the experience in many ways. They wear giant costumes, so the changing of members tends to go over a bit easier.  They also use aliases, like Jizmak da Gusha is the character played by drummer Brad Roberts since 1989, and lead guitarist Tommy Meehan goes by the title Grodius Maximus. There are human slaves that come on and off stage throughout the night as well, each with a name and a role, and some even playing guitar on certain songs. 

One major role they play is to prepare the characters for sacrifice, which continues throughout the night. The band would bring up a president and then quickly sacrifice them while playing a song. The intentional insensitivity kept amping up as well. There was a 9/11 / 3/11 joke, where they reenacted George W. learning about the terrorist attack on the towers. They brought back the aforementioned Abraham Lincoln and talked of the good old days of owning people. They brought back Reagan and cut off his hands, with a “pill-popping” Nancy on stuck to his back. There was even Hitler at one point. 

Of course, the crowd was eating it up. They happily got sprayed with the blood and guts of these former presidents, banging their heads and holding devil horns to the sky the entire time. Many up front were in white shirts so they could save their stained shirts as a trophy after the show. They exploded in a cheer when the band asked if Cleveland loved old-school thrash metal. 

It was an exciting show, to say the least, and certainly did live up to the hype. There wasn’t a dry fan anywhere near the front row by the end of the evening. You didn’t even have to know any of the songs to really enjoy it. The production and planning that must go into just one night of the tour is impressive. It’s probably more of an experience akin to Broadway than a typical concert. Just prep yourself for the gross and offensive nature. It’s quite the site to behold and is part of why the band is still successfully touring today after all this time.