GWAR – “Scumdogs Of The Universe – 30th Anniversary” Live Stream 30th October 2020 Review
13th November 20202020…quite the remarkable year wouldnât you agree? Weâre now in November, and the world is still in the midst of the Coronavirus clusterfuck, with lockdowns happening left, right, north, south, east, west and centre. But, while weâre all once again panic buying bog-roll and lube… I mean pasta, and complaining that we canât go to the pub, we have to try and remain positive…remember the good times, and thatâs where nostalgia helps. Â
Cast your mind back ten years, and MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE have just released âDanger Daysâ…it was shit wasnât it?! OK thatâs a bad example. How about twenty years? LINKIN PARK dropped âHybrid Theoryâ two decades ago…an actual masterpiece and the first album this reviewer bought in Woolworths with some actual coin (Now Iâm feeling old)âŚbut what about THIRTY years ago? A little band called GWAR were hitting their penis-pumping, gloriously gory, gratuitous intergalactic prime with the album âScumdogs Of The Universeâ…Â
Famous for their phallic endeavours, they were never going to be a MAINSTREAM success, but as far as cult followings go, GWAR are up there with GG ALLIN and every other depraved bunch of musicians you can possibly imagine. This Halloween, the current line up celebrated the 30th anniversary of the aforementioned album with a special live-stream concert…All About The Rock were there to witness it all unfold over the interweb, hereâs what went down (And up…and inside…and, oh god what have we gotten ourselves into this time?).Â
To any fans purchasing the live stream it was available through GWARâs website for around the region of $15 but that price does include a hefty pre-show, which weâre going to have to mention. Weâll start with the listening party…four of the current members, in full costume, playback segments of the remastered vinyl and talk about the history of the album as minimally as possible. Honestly, with about, ten to twenty seconds of each track played and them talking bollocks, either they donât know what theyâre doing, or they donât know what theyâre doing. It comes across as both quite frankly, but the banter between them at least raises a couple of chuckles, however if you were hoping for an in-depth deep-dive into the depravity of the album, itâs sound and heritage, youâll be as gutted as John Wayne Gacey when his first victim escaped because he forgot to remove the car door handles.Â
The bulk of the pre-show actually included a live performance from around the time of the original albums release, with GWAR and their many extraâs crammed onto a stage in front of a rabid, sweaty and frankly amoral audience. The kind of people whose search histories youâd happily report yâknow? It looked CRAZY! Original vocalist Oderous, portrayed by the late Dave Brockie, snarls and sneers his way through what is essentially a rock and metal version of BOTTOM given the toilet humour and slapstick violence, and itâs ruddy brilliant! Iâm pretty sure they chopped a guys tits off, but I digress…this brilliance, was in fact, the nights downfall.Â
When it came to the 2020 performance, yes, they had a little back-stage introductory segment where Sleazy P. Martini reintroduces everyone to the band and acts like some BTEC Jools Holland, and thereâs a few little comedy skits which are fine, but the performance itself is just, by no fault of itâs own, severely lacking. Donât get me wrong, thereâs absolutely nothing wrong with the tracks let that be said. Cuts like âThe Salaminizerâ are as sexually ludicrous as ever…â Sick Of Youâ is just as good now as it was 30 years ago the absolutely banging bastard that it is, while âVlad The Impalerâ and âMaggotsâ are equally as rocking, and this really is the disappointing thing. Â
Itâs the bands most successful album, and 30 years is a pretty damn impressive achievement for a band like GWAR, even taking the continually shuffled line-up into consideration, but having to do a live-stream show online, to zero physical audience in an empty room does absolutely NOTHING for this album, or the bands gimmick for that matter. They are as much a slapstick spectacle, a hideously comedic slab of metal theatre as they are a band, and that crowd participation, that human interaction is what makes a GAWR show a GWAR show. A great album and such an entertaining band, but the absolute wrong time to put on such a milestone show. Covid-19. Iâm so sick, so sick of you.Â
Set List
The Salaminizer
The Years Without Light
Sexecutioner
Black and Huge
Vlad the Impaler
Death Pod
Maggots
Love Surgery
Horror of Yig
King Queen
Sick of You
The Private Pain of Techno Destructo
U Ain’t Shit
Encore:
Cool Place to Park
Slaughterama