We’re almost reaching the end of 2017. We’ve lost and remembered many musicians this year and we’ve seen some really great tours throughout 2017 as well; however, no tour may ever come close to our galactic interplanetary warriors GWAR.
GWAR returned to Los Angeles to play the ageless Fonda Theatre and brought some friends with them on The Blood of Gods tour. The opening acts did a hell of a job kicking off the show with Virgina’s U.S. Bastards, followed by He Is Legend and lastly Ghoul. He Is Legend had a very intense and interesting set that drew the crowd in from the lounge and had the audience opening up the mosh pit on the Fonda Theater floor. Lead vocalist Schuylar Croom hammered through songs like shots of whiskey and was sure to maintain a consistent dance throughout the entire set. Ghoul had a unique, but similar live show compared to GWAR. Ghoul came out with their heads covered with brown sack bags with only one eye showing before they led into their first song of the night Ghoulunatics from the 2016 album Dungeon Bastards. Ghoul shredded through a pretty hefty setlist with some songs titled Off With Their Heads, Shred The Dead, and Wall of Death. The death metal group played about thirty minutes of pure shredding mixed in with dark vocals, humorful jokes, and BLOOD that was brought to us by Commandant Yanish Dobrunkum and another character who sprayed the “blood” of a chicken amongst the crowd.
After watching the thrash metal band Ghoul destroy the remainders of the stage, it was up to GWAR to come back and finish off the crowd with a few swings of a blade and a lot more blood. Fresh off their new album The Blood of Gods (October ’17) GWAR began their set with War On GWAR. Playing through fan favorites such as I’ll Be Your Monster and Bring Back The Bomb GWAR had the fans hollering and screaming for more. Despite being well known for all the blood spill, watching people such as the army, Donald Trump, Glomco’s CEO Boss Glom, and a priest all die in one way or another on stage there’s one thing that remains separate from all the theatrics and that is the fact that GWAR can be an amazing live band on all on its own based off of pure talent. Watching guitarist Balsac the Jaws of Death and Pustulus Maximus burn through their guitars during each song was enough for me to want to buy a ticket to every show without missing one. And although we miss Dave Brockie Berserker Blothar has been doing a hell of a job replacing the legendary vocalist Oderus Urungus. GWAR played a set that lasted about an hour and a half and left the fans drenched in blood from head to toe. A majority of the set came from the new album, but the band didn’t stray away from others such as War Party, Scumdogs of the Universe, and Bloody Pit of Horror. Needless to say, the fans had nothing but love for the scumdogs and hope to be sacrificed again soon.
