8/27/15 Gwar 30th Anniversary Tour review

Hello fellow metal heads! Gwar is celebrating it's thirty year anniversary this year and has decided to do what they do best by going out on tour killing celebrities and smoking crack. Alas, this tour left somewhat of a bad taste in my mouth. The stop on the tour that I went to was at Wooly's in Des Moines, IA. I had been to Wooly's once before this and that was also for a Gwar show. The show started with local Nu Metal act Apathy Syndrome. This band has a large following in the Des Moines area and I can see why. The band is very high energy and knows how to get the crowd moving. Personally, I did not care much for the group, but I can see why many do as they are musically solid and great muscians. If you see these guys on a lineup chances are there are other good groups too.

After Apathy Syndrome was off the stage on came Battlecross! Battlecross were arguably the best band of the night. I have seen Battlecross once before this on the Metal Hammer Trespass America Tour a few years back in Waterloo, IA and both times they were amazing. Half of the set was new songs from the album "Rise to Power", out now on Metal Blade, and was extremely good. I will be adding this album to my collection. If you get a chance to see Battlecross I would definitely not pass it up.

Next up was Butcher Babies. They played a lot off the new album "Take it Like a Man" out now on Century Media. This was my first time seeing Butcher Babies live and to be honest I was personally not very impressed. The lead singers are very attractive and have decent vocals and the band is very solid musically speaking, but I found the songs very hard to get into. This is also around the time I got kicked in the face and my glasses lens fell out so maybe I am being a little bias given my situation during the set.

Next the mighty GWAR! This is my first time seeing Gwar since the passing of Dave Brockie (Oderus). I felt the story line, given the fact of it being the thirty year anniversary, was very poorly done. Gwar's battle this time was with the internet. The story was very pieced together and was not very cohesive. They introduced new character, Olderus Urungus, who was basically a blue Oderus and had no clear back story and was considered still the main villain. However the redeeming moments of the night were when Gwar pulled out the classics such as "Meat Sandwich" and "Metal Metal Land", but the best moment was when they played "Baby Raper" in light of the Jared Fogle incident and found a alien baby to rape using the app "Kinder" beforehand. Some other great moments are when they ripped Hillary Clinton's tits off and when they ripped off a persons dick that was pretending to be a woman. Mike Bishop (Blothar), the new lead singer, has pretty good chops but cannot replace Oderus completely and he is not trying to. I do feel that Gwar at the moment is still in some what of anawkward stage since Dave's passing, but I do have hope they will come through it completely! Gwar will live on! Gwar will never die! Although this is not my best experience with Gwar it doesn't mean it won't be yours! If you have not seen them and they are coming close by I would suggest going to see them. They are a bunch of great guys and deserve your support and who knows maybe you too will become a fellow scumdog like me.

-Jimmy Wentz