Show In Review: GWAR, Hatebreed & Miss May I

October 19th, 2018 The day began with the sound of puke in my bathroom at 3:30 am. My buddy Joe had drank a little too much cinnamon whiskey the day before and didn’t even remember coming to my house and passing out on the couch. I woke up to him puking and  then passing out again in my bathroom with all of my throw pillows. Why those were in my  fucking bathroom I have no clue…but whatever. Next we went on a grand adventure to the truck stop to get snacks before heading out on the road in good old Ernest (yes that is the name I have my truck…fuck you if you don’t like it).

On the way to Phoenix we stopped in Kingman, AZ to do some tattoo roulette at Black Sheep Tattoo & Piercing  (60 bucks gets you defaulttwo quarters to get a random tattoo out of a gumball machine and we did it twice) where Johnny brought a little color to my,  now de-virginized,  right leg. Joe got a tramp stamp of a lightning bug with a lantern butt…and a stomach tattoo of pickle rick. It was a comical stop on the way to some awesomeness. And as an added plus we got to talk music almost the whole time.

Now normally I go on these out of town road trips on a solo and just jam out to Viking / Melodic Death Metal playlists the whole time. But this time homie was sitting shotgun. This fool is one of those people that can’t just listen to music on a roadtrip…he has to talk the WHOLE time. But it’s okay because at least is an amusing exchange of bad jokes and verbal abuse. I don’t think he officially sobered up until right before we arrived at the hotel. When we checked in they were giving out free wine in the lobby. Joe immediately downed 2 glasses of some fancy boxed Moscato. Then it was time to get ready for the show.

It was my first time at the Marquee Theater. Over all the layout of the venue is pretty great. It’s got a downward slant down to the stage area with lots of unobstructed floor space. The angle of the floor allows for better visibility regardless of how far back you are, giving less of a disadvantage to fans that prefer to stand further back.

We arrived at the start of Miss May I‘s set. Their sound immediately hit through my rib-cage. Vibrating my bones and rearranging my guts. Their mosh pit was pretty small with not a whole lot of crowd participation, but plenty of headbanging to make up for it. There was a young blonde lady who was doing cartwheels in the middle of the pit until her tits fell out of her shirt and then she scurried out in a flood of embarrassment clutching her chest.

Hatebreed came up next …the line up for this show was a cross sub-genre set up. It made for a good variety of attendees with different personalities and styles which is a great tactic for drawing larger crowds if done right (it was done quite well in this instance).

There was a point where some really tall dude kept backing into me and at one point used my crossed arms as an elbow rest. I returned that by knocking up his elbow and screaming really loud with what was recovered of my lost voice from the Saturday and Sunday prior to notify him of my presence behind him. I then proceeded head bang to the point where my hair was whipping the shit out of him and his buddy until they made room. Now I’m not one for caring about personal space but when your back is within inches of hitting my face every time you move AND you use me as an arm rest…nopppppe. fuck you dude I’m not about that.

A fight broke it in the pit to the point where Hatebreed’ s singer stopped their set twice and had to cut it a song short. The singer gave a speech for a few minutes before playing their last 2 songs for the night.

GWAR‘s stage set up felt like it was taking forever. It was a night of firsts I had not seen any of these bands play live before and GWAR was on my bucket list of must see bands. The reputation of their shows with walls of death and showers of fake blood and alien his topped by the anti-establishment antics made it something I had to see. Just so happened they were playing the same day we had planned to drive into town.

In the crowd I spotted Tommy Gibbons the guitarist from FLAW , a band I had previously written a show review for. He was preoccupied so I left him be.

The lights when down and the infomercials started .. GlomCo was in power and GEAR was here to take their free will back in a most brutal and vile way.

I was 2 people away from the stage barrier when everything started. There was a girl there that I talked to in between sets who was immediately all up in my space pressing against my back to wedge herself through to the front to the point where it became difficult to keep my balance. Her boyfriend was in a band playing the 20th to support some headlining band at some other show locally. She’s tried to wedge herself up to the barrier..trying to shove people out of the way…now yes this is a metal show but the barrier area is not a mosh pit. It’s usually where the people who don’t want to mosh or be brutally pushed stand.

The show started with two armed space marines exploring the surface prior to GWAR and his band of anti-heroes coming out and beheading them while starting the first number of their set “War on GWAR”. Fake blood squirted from their headless writhing bodies into the crowd, raining down upon the now 3 layers of shirts I was wearing.

Next they brought out the carcasses of 2 dummy children (a boy and a girl) and stripped them before fucking them on stage before ejaculating out into the crowd with green alien jizz….giving me a full facial of green goop. it just kept kitting me in the face. I couldn’t stop smiling but avoided laughing because I didn’t want to get any fake blood or jizz in my mouth just yet. This shit was absolutely hilarious. The lyrics and content of their act were already beyond taboo in certain circles and I was loving it despite the couple who decided their 10th time needed to be right up at the front shoving first timers out of their way to soak in all the alien jizz for themselves (i hope they at least swallowed).

The set kept getting better and better. The fucked a catholic priest with a giant cross in the ass and tore off the boobs of their Glomco boss followed by gutting Donald Trump. It was a show full of satyr and laughs. I got some amazing photos (to be uploaded). My feet hurt but we stayed until the very end. Running into new Vegas pal Bobby Dangerous at the side of the crowd after Joe got sandwiched and punched in his spine where he has existing issues.

The night ended and we went back to our hotel where the poor staff probably found all the sheets and blankets and towels with some level of purple on them. I was wearing 3 shirts and my boobs still ended up purple form the alien jizz and blood that saturated me. Washing my hair was like washing out hair dye. The water was dark purple for a good few minutes before it started to clear up.

If you have not seen them play … it is 1000% worth it. Their shows are quite the production. Even if you don’t want to get splattered if you stand far enough back you are safe and can watch the crowds be engorged with jizz.