M'Lou Elkins
As the Scumdogs of the Universe prepared their cosplay antics for an eager crowd, stoner band Crobot warmed up the night with several tracks that evoked English glam-rockers The Darkness.
Crobot is a Mascot Label band that’s toured with the likes of Chevelle and KYNG, so the average Gwar enthusiast would be forgiven if its name hadn’t popped into a Spotify rec list. But if theatrics was the motif, then the lead singer’s tight crushed velvet pants were on point.
Crobot brought energy and showmanship to the stage and was legit entertaining – teeing up the headliners with just the right dose of fab and glam.
Gwar opened its set with tracks representing three of its four-decade legacy. The metal troupers kicked off with “The Cutter” from the 2022 release The New Dark Ages, before reaching back to the early nineties with “The Issue of Tissue” from This Toilet Earth and early 2000s with “Bring back the Bomb” from War Party. It was while the Slave Pit artists toured in support of This Toilet Earth in 1994 that I dragged my dear mother on an adventure, at one point crashing their tour bus and…well, that’s a story for another day.
Seconds into the set, from my (disad)vantage point in the venue’s photo pit, I caught the first of many customary bloodsprays. Though, quickly, I learned to duck and cover.
Like the best Roger Corman films, Gwar steeps its surrealism and satire in schlock and staginess. The barbaric interplanetary warriors in fact seem well-suited to the cheap sci-fi narratives for which Corman is best known. Unlike Corman’s stable of filmmakers, which has jump-started the careers of numerous Hollywood elite, the devoted fans of Gwar’s sharp satire inhabit a subculture that – 13 or so albums later – have woven in and out of the mainstream. But sitting just beneath the otherworldly, cartoonish shock rock is the cerebral dark humor of the human condition.
As an old-school fan that lived in a nineties all my own, I silently agonized over the absence of legacy semen-spraying shows that featured “Slaughterama,” “Immortal Corruptor,” and “The Road Behind.” With so many new songs crowded into a certainly well-crafted setlist, at times I felt like an outsider at a quintessential outsider’s show. As the set approached its terminus, the band took one last trip back in time, ending the main set with “None but the Brave” from Ragnarök.
For its encore, the band pulled out “Sick of You,” another throwback, followed by the more recent “Fuck This Place.”
I wish mom were here to see the gluey red drops hanging from my cheeks. But a bright selfie will have to suffice.
Check out the photo gallery from the GWAR show:
Check out the photo gallery from the Crobot show:
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