GWAR-B-Que 2011: GWAR, Darkest Hour, Kepone, Battlemaster, Argonauts, Druglord, Mensrea, Occultist, DBX, Bloody Crackdown, Groundscore
Saturday, September 17 at The National
I was really disappointed when, a few days before this event took place, it was moved from Hadad's Lake to the National. For one thing, it involved yet another act of capricious disdain for Richmond's music scene by local governments; apparently Henrico County wanted to prove that they could hate rock n' roll just as much as Richmond City. Good for them, I guess. For another, it meant that a lot of the non-musical attractions that had made the GWAR-B-Que sound like more than just a concert but a daylong extravaganza of awesomeness were no longer feasible. Barbecuing and tall-bike jousting, among other things, were going to be impossible inside a concert hall. But once I got over my initial disappointment, I realized that, despite the event now being little more than a one-day music festival, it was still an awesome lineup containing several bands that'd be worth the price of admission all by themselves. It'd be little more than sour grapes to continue to complain about the situation for more than a few minutes.
Nonetheless, judging from the relatively sparse audience at the National for all but the last couple of hours of this show, I think that's what a lot of people must have done. "It's not at Hadad's? Then fuck it," seemed to be a prevailing sentiment in the comments left on the facebook event page over the course of the week leading up to the show. Let me just say it right now: everyone who planned to come but skipped it at the last minute blew it in a big way. It may not have been perfect, and I'll freely admit that by the time the day reached its climax with GWAR's performance, I was too tired to fully enjoy it. But there were so many awesome moments that occurred during the 10-hour span of time I spent at the National that day that, if I'd missed it, I'd have been kicking myself for years.
That said, my day didn't start off all that well. We arrived during Bloody Crackdown's set, which I later realized meant that we had missed Groundscore entirely. I wish we'd seen them instead. Not that I know anything about Groundscore, but they can't be as bad as Bloody Crackdown. I'd seen them years ago as the opening act at a basement show, and they were obnoxious then. What they've done in the past five years to allow them to rise to the status of playing a bigtime show at the National, even if they were playing 9 hours before the headliners, is beyond me. Their music still sounded terrible, in that way that the first band a bunch of 13 year old kids form six months after discovering punk rock always sounds terrible. They didn't have youth to fall back on as an excuse, though--from what I could see (some of them were wearing masks), they're in their 30s, just like I am. It makes me think that, given the millions of different kinds of music they could play, they really did form a band with the intent of playing sub-Exploited midtempo three-chord punk, and that's not an impulse that makes any sense to me, especially in light of the sub-mediocre results it produced. That's not to mention the fact that, during their set, a costumed non-member of the band kept marching around on the stage doing things like waving a US Navy Seals flag, or firing a toy machine gun into the microphone. I couldn't make out many of the words, but my basic impression was of a patriotic, militaristic sensibility. So not only were they musically crappy, but they had lame lyrics as well. I couldn't find a single redeeming quality about this band.
Things went uphill from there--how could they not?--with DBX, a trio led by GWAR founder Dave Brockie (the band name stands for Dave Brockie eXperience), out of costume and on bass as well as vocals. He was joined by a guitarist and drummer who may or may not also have been current members of GWAR--I really wouldn't know. But the drummer did get to use GWAR's big giant drumset, which was set up and covered by sheets throughout all of the opening bands' sets. Membership has its privileges, I suppose. DBX's music wasn't too far from that of GWAR, which makes sense especially in light of Brockie's distinctive vocal tone being at the forefront of both groups. However, I'd say what DBX were doing was a bit less metal/hardcore and more rock n' roll in orientation than what GWAR does. The goofy, un-PC sense of humor was retained, and while no one in DBX wore a costume onstage, they were joined by two costumed "bodyguards" from the band Dethrace, whose outfits sure looked like products of the Slave Pit. Even if they weren't, I can see why they've formed an allegiance with Brockie and co. DBX's set was filled with goofy interludes and false starts that blurred the line between intentional comedy and unintentional sloppiness, but they kept it fun and, once actually getting into their songs, generally rocked in fine fashion. Overall, I enjoyed their set.
Next up was the first band of the day that I got really excited about: Occultist. This local Richmond band straddles the line between metal and hardcore quite effectively, reminding me in equal parts of the dark, crusty hardcore style pioneered by His Hero Is Gone and the raw, fast black metal of early Bathory, with maybe some Slayer thrown in. Maybe it wasn't exactly like that, but I feel confident saying that fans of one or all of the above would enjoy Occultist quite a bit. They have a female vocalist, but anyone making stereotypical assumptions about Occultist's relative brutality as a result would be sorely mistaken, as the vocals were quite possibly the heaviest thing about Occultist. They started out with a fast, heavy tune that would have kicked off their set in fine fashion had the energy not been completely derailed by a guitar amp malfunctioning towards the end of the song. There followed over five minutes of alternating silence and feedback as attempts were made to fix the equipment problems, which ended when the rest of the band, realizing they were wasting their set time, decided to quit waiting for the guitar to get fixed, and played a song with just one guitar. The second guitar was back online by the end of that song, and their set flowed relatively smoothly (with only one brief break to fix a broken string) from then on. However, the delay was enough to throw things off a bit, and singer Kerry Zylstra spent the rest of the set looking like she wanted to murder someone. Her performance grew more and more intense as the set went on, as she screamed in the faces of the kids in the front row and dropped to her knees at crucial points, finally ending the set by crumpling to the stage in mid-scream. The rest of the band were no slouches themselves, laying down a ferocious backing track for the furious vocals and propelling the whole set into overdrive (whenever equipment wasn't breaking). I was duly impressed, and was sorry to hear that they don't have any releases yet--there's a cassette coming out soon, though, so keep an eye out for that.
Mensrea were the next band to perform, and while they didn't quite meet the high bar that Occultist had previously set, their tough, heavy brand of modern American metal made for a satisfying performance. I could definitely hear some Pantera and Lamb Of God influences in what they were doing, and also a little bit of the more musically legitimate end of nu-metal, like Slipknot or System Of A Down. They even made me think of Shadows Fall at points, though that may have had to do with the bassist's waist-length dreadlocks, which reminded me of the similar hairstyle favored by Shadows Fall's singer. But honestly, I can't say much more than that--the truth is that Mensrea, while quite enjoyable for me at the time, just weren't all that specifically memorable. It's a problem that occurs sometimes when seeing lots of bands in a row; the ones you have the most trouble remembering aren't the really bad ones; they're the decent ones who just don't stand out that much. Mensrea were tight and well-practiced, their members obviously had talent, and while their sound wasn't tremendously original, they did a good job of putting it across live. I had fun watching and listening to them. However, the nuances of their performance are kind of muddled in my head, so it's tough to say much more than that. I don't want to damn them with faint praise, but in truth, I feel like they need to do a bit more to make their music stand out if they want to be the best-remembered band on a ten-band bill anytime soon.
80s-era Richmond hardcore legends White Cross, who broke up 25 years ago and reformed in 2009, were scheduled to play next, and they were one of the bands on the bill that I was most excited to see. However, due to a snafu involving flight delays, their guitarist wasn't actually in town when the time came for them to perform, so their spot on the bill was filled by White Cross bassist Greta Brinkman's other band, Druglord. Druglord are a slow, gloomy doom-metal trio, making their music nearly the polar opposite of White Cross's, and when I realized that they were playing instead of White Cross, I was somewhat disappointed. However, once I got used to the fact that I was seeing a completely different band with a completely different sound, I ended up enjoying Druglord's set quite a bit. Their doom-metal sound is more inspired by the raw, dirty punk sound of bands like EyeHateGod or Goatsnake than the more polished doom of Candlemass, which I like. I also like the fact that they mix in enough tempo variation to keep the songs from getting too monotonous. There were even some downright midtempo moments, though they were of course few and far between, with the majority of the songs being dedicated to crawling, painful slowness. Druglord were far enough from what most of the audience expected that they had trouble connecting with the crowd, but they played their set well and, if nothing else, won me over.
Next up were Argonauts, another band I was really excited to see. This was their first show ever, but they played this far into the bill due to an all-star lineup featuring original Dillinger Escape Plan vocalist Dimitri Minakakis and two former members of Burnt By The Sun: guitarist John Adubato and drummer Dave Witte (who also plays in Municipal Waste). East Of The Wall bassist Brett Bamberger rounded out the lineup, and was the most visually interesting part of the band, rocking out in extremely active fashion and slinging his long hair around with vigor. The music was definitely well-suited for headbanging, too--with two members of Burnt By The Sun involved, it was no surprise to find Argonauts' music picking up where that band had left off on their second and final LP, The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good. As with that album, Argonauts mostly stuck to heavy midtempo grooves, working up plenty of energy through frantic, pounding repetition--which is difficult to do when a band doesn't rely on tempo changes or breakdowns to give the songs a greater dynamic. Argonauts did use tempo variation at points, breaking out a classic Dave Witte blastbeat on one of their later songs to stunning effect, but for the most part they relied upon their tight playing and well-written riffs to carry the day. This approach totally worked, and I was blown away by the ferociousness of their performance. They stopped after 6 songs, because that was apparently all the material they had written, but I'd have been glad to see them play a set twice as long. This isn't just a collection of big name ex-members--Argonauts are a solid band in their own right, and everyone who gets thrilled at the thought of seeing these men play together should have no fear of being let down. They're the real deal; go see them when you get the chance.
The show had been moving swiftly at this point, and I was feeling pretty good about the amount of bands left, and how relatively early it still was. I knew that the longer the show went, the more tired I and less enthusiastic I would be by the time GWAR started, so I was in favor of the show continuing to move quickly. The momentum got derailed a bit after Argonauts set, though, as GWAR manager Sleazy P. Martini hit the stage with a karaoke machine for an interlude entitled "American A-Hole Karaoke." This lengthy comedy skit did allow the audience an extended opportunity to watch Sleazy P., who has been rarely seen in recent years, do the sort of snarky, obnoxious comedy that has been the character's milieu for the past two decades. However, a great deal of the humor was reliant on improvisation from the teenaged kids who were selected from the audience as competitors on the show. They veered without warning from surprisingly hilarious to groaningly sophomoric (which, come to think of it, means they were squarely in the GWAR spirit), and the improvised commentary from celebrity judges Don Jamieson of That Metal Show, Randy Blythe of Lamb Of God, and Brian Slagel of Metal Blade Records was also inconsistent at times. I have to commend the Slave Pit crew for at least attempting to retain the multifarious extravaganza feel that had originally been planned, rather than taking the move to the National as a reason to give up and merely present a really long concert. However, I more tolerated than enjoyed this segment of the show, though it was pointed out to me later that if I'd been drunk, the whole thing would probably have been hilarious. It seemed like a lot of other people at the show found it thus, so I'd say it was a successful bit, overall.
Next up was Richmond quintet Battlemaster, whom I have enjoyed for a long time but hadn't seen in a while. They proved with their performance that they haven't lost anything in their more recent years, blasting through a whole bunch of material, most of which was new enough that I hadn't heard it before, with power and fury. Battlemaster do a great job of injecting humor into their music while retaining a serious quality that proves they are far from a joke band. Their set had quite a few amusing moments; one song was described as being about a dilemma in which "you must break the spell, but in order to break the spell, you must fuck the decomposed witch!" This sort of gory humor went over well with GWAR's audience, as did a song the band dedicated to the kids wearing boots in the mosh pit, entitled "Cursed Boots Of Perpetual Dancing." Regardless of the humor that infused their lyrics and song titles, though, Battlemaster laid down a set that was seriously brutal and had lots of people dancing and rocking out. Their style mixes thrash, death, and black metal together in a manner that should have widespread appeal amongst fans of heavy music, and they proved that by winning over the crowd at the GWAR-B-Q.
The same could not be said of the act that followed them. Don Jamieson, co-host of VH1 Classic's That Metal Show, is also a comedian, and a reasonably successful one--his recent CD Live And Hilarious hit the Billboard top 10. Therefore, when he came out to do a comedy set just before Kepone played, I was expecting to laugh. It didn't happen, though--not for me, and not for the great majority of the audience at the GWAR-B-Q. It's strange, too, because after my previous experience writing about a GWAR show, and about how there's bound to be at least one point during a GWAR set at which their humor offends your sensibilities, I would have expected more people at the show to enjoy the aspects of Jamieson's comedy that didn't work for me. Maybe the problem is that he's just not as funny about offensive topics as GWAR is, or maybe the problem is that his humor seems to rely exclusively on offensive ideas--almost all of his jokes had either racism, sexism, or homophobia as an integral component. By the time he was two minutes into his set, he was having to resort every 30 seconds or so to "winning the crowd back over" type comments about how much he loves Richmond or GWAR or metal or whatever. After 10 minutes or so, the crowd had fully turned on him, with every new joke being greeted mostly with roaring jeers. He made some comment at one point about Sarah Palin being our next president in 2012, and I was surprised (and disappointed) at the vehement chants of "Ron Paul! Ron Paul!" that erupted in response. But anyway, Jamieson was actually bombing so bad that the only thing allowing his set to end on a high note was GWAR vocalist Oderus Urungus charging onstage and "killing" Jamieson in mid-joke by choking him out and sending fake blood flying everywhere. The entire set had been painful, but the crowd let out a good-natured roar at its ending on such a high note, which helped restore the communal morale.
That's when Kepone hit the stage. This mid-90s era Richmond band had started as a side project of GWAR's original Beefcake, Michael Bishop, though he left GWAR soon after Kepone's formation to concentrate on that band full-time. The trio were probably the least metal act to appear on the bill--Kepone's off-kilter but melodic alt-rock instead owed its biggest debts to bands like Fugazi and the Minutemen. I can clearly remember their original heyday in the mid-90s, and even owned a couple of 7" singles by them back in the day, but for whatever reason, I had never seen them play live. Seeing their reunion set made me realize that missing numerous chances to see them back in the day had been a huge mistake. They delivered the goods in a major way live. Michael Bishop's unique vocals--which somehow mixed a harsh, keening quality with some real pop melody--and the band's complex interplay added up to a powerful, steamrolling musical unit that knocked everyone on their ass. Despite only knowing a few of their songs, I thoroughly enjoyed every tune they played. It was a great mix of material from all of their releases, with quite a few standouts, and they even played my favorite of their songs: "Prisoners," from their second album, Skin. Kepone's set is my pick for the best of the day, which is saying something in light of the quality of the other groups on the bill. If the rumors of further reunion shows in the near future prove to be true, I'll be at as many of those as I can possibly get to. I only wish I'd figured out how great these guys were back when I was a teenager, but hey, better late than never, right?
Darkest Hour were the penultimate group of the evening, and by this point my energy was starting to wane. This was probably the sixth or seventh time I've seen Darkest Hour over the years, and they're still as great as ever, but it was hard for me to get too excited about their music--I was just a bit too tired to headbang. My real doom occurred when my photographer companion discovered that our press passes would allow us onto the balcony. While she took pictures, I found an empty seat and sat down for the first time in something like seven hours. Considering the case of show fatigue I was then experiencing, it was much easier to enjoy Darkest Hour from a seated position, and I ended up paying much closer attention to the second half of their set than I had to the first. They busted out their excellent 2011 single "Savor The Kill" towards the end of the set, which made me particularly happy, and got the crowd even more hyped than they were already, as singer John Henry demanded and got a huge, wall-to-wall circle pit. The fact that this show was not as packed as the previous GWAR show I'd seen helped at times like this, as the audience members who didn't feel like dancing had enough room to stay out of the way of those who did. From what I saw, the only blood spilled during the show was fake blood, and everyone had a really good time, so that was great.
Standing up from my balcony seat and heading down to the floor for GWAR's set, I started to realize that sitting down during Darkest Hour had been a mistake. Where before, I had felt a bit worn out, I was now truly tired. I used the last remaining bit of my energy helping our intrepid photographer wrap her camera in a trash bag to protect it from the various liquids that GWAR would no doubt be dousing her with during their set, then moved towards the back of the venue as she took her place in the photo pit. I had considered getting down front for the GWAR set, but then realized that since I'd done that and written about it once before, it wasn't really necessary to do so again. I found an empty spot towards the back of the main floor of the National and leaned against the wall. By the time GWAR took the stage, leaning had turned into crouching, which had turned into sitting on the floor, which had turned into resting my elbows on my knees and putting my head down onto my crossed arms, Minor Threat-style. Roused from my semi-conscious daze by the dimming of the lights and the roar of the crowd, I stood up and found a spot that looked to be outside the range of the blood-spray.
GWAR hit the stage with their usual slaughterific antics, then started their set as fake blood gushed from the stump of their latest victim's severed head. The music reminded me of late 80s hardcore-metal crossover sounds, and with Dave Brockie's wailing baritone overtop of it, I couldn't help but think of Sheer Terror, the humorous and somewhat un-PC crossover band from New York in the late 80s/early 90s. GWAR's songs are catchy and fun, uptempo in a manner that's perfect for a circle pit, and even without their ridiculous lyrics, are made slightly humorous merely by Brockie's over-the-top singing style. However, everyone knows that the real point of a GWAR show is the crazy costumery, and they didn't disappoint this night, as Oderus, Beefcake the Mighty, Balzac the Jaws Of Death, Flattus Maximus, and the rest of the crew were all in fine form. If anything, I felt like they were doing a bit less of the blood-spraying than they did the last time I saw them, with characters hitting the stage for ritual slaughter every two or three songs rather than every song. This made it a bit easier to avoid getting messy, especially since I had succeeded in stationing myself out of range. I enjoyed the appearance of Sawborg Destructo, and the murder of a fat, bloated, obviously dead Elvis Presley character was a new bit I hadn't seen before, so even without every song being accompanied by blood spray, the stage show did not disappoint.
Nonetheless, after eight or nine songs, fatigue was setting in, and since we hadn't eaten in nearly 12 hours, we ended up deciding to head out and miss the last half of GWAR's set. I am well aware that this resulted in us missing a lot of highlights--Kepone's Michael Bishop rejoining the band to reprise his long-ago role as the original Beefcake was among them, as was the ingestion of Attack Of The Show cohost Candace Bailey by GWAR's accomplice World Maggot. I don't know--maybe I'm just too old now, or maybe I've never been the type of person with the endurance to withstand a 12-hour show. Regardless, I can tell you that the GWAR-B-Q, despite being a totally awesome event, just went on too long for me to be able to enjoy myself throughout its entire duration. I don't have that kind of party stamina, I suppose. Still, while I couldn't quite survive the whole thing, I did have a great time during my lengthy stay at the event, and saw a lot of great bands. Overall, despite the loss of the outdoor venue and some of the activities that couldn't happen indoors, the Slave Pit and the National made the best of a less-than-ideal situation and put on a great show for everyone who came out. Those who didn't make it, who decided that the venue change meant that it wasn't worth going, or who otherwise slept on the day, missed out in a big way. Next year, regardless of where it happens, I advise you to get your ass to the GWAR-B-Q. If this year's event was any indication, you won't be disappointed.
Words by Andrew Necci
Images by Joanna Moreno