“Gotta smash my chin till I got a cleft.”
What was your first Athens show? I remember mine vividly. GWAR! At the 40 watt! I loved GWAR all through high school. Such awesomely vulgar and silly lyrics. The band had (and still has) a legendary reputation for over the top shows. I remember going into a record store in Mobile AL. The owner of the shop looked like Sloth from the Goonies. He was huge and scary looking. I bought a copy of America Must Be Destroyed. When he saw it he looked at me with fearful eyes and said “Dude, I’ve been to a lot of shows, but I’ll remember that GWAR show for the rest of my life”. Then he showed me a gnarly scar that ran the length of his bald scalp. “I nearly lost an eye!”
Dude.
So when I found out they were coming to the 40 watt, I bought tickets right away. Me and my brother went. When we walked into the 40 watt, we knew we were in for something awesome. The whole place was covered in black plastic wrap. Even the frikkin ceiling. Like they were expecting copious amounts of blood to be spilt.
The opening act was absolutely awful. I don’t remember the name of the ‘band’ but they sucked ass. Picture some dudes on stage dressed in black with makeup on making over the top satanic gestures while a giant red pentagram on a black background is lit up behind them. Meanwhile a chick with her gut spilling over her waistline was belly dancing wearing black leather. They had a mercifullly short set.
Soon the curtains covering up the stage were pulled back. The lights were lowered. A sound like whirling wind filled the air. A man was on stage. It was Jacques Cousteau. If you know the mythology of Gwar, you know that Cousteau discovered the band frozen in Antartica and unleashed them on an unsuspecting world. Jacques began to explain his discovery in a thick French accent. A slow, plodding, stomping was heard as the drummer, with a huge coglike protuberance from his head, took his place on stage. The crowd was waiting with baited breath. The bass player came next. I think his entire head was a steel bear trap. The rest of the band slowly marched on stage and into position as Jacques continued to expound. Finally, the lead singer, Oderous Urungus himself appeared, towering over all by a good 2 feet. In his hands was a giant sword at least as tall as himself. Jacques’ voice was lost as the wind built to a crescendo and then BAM! Oderous swung the sword and Jacques fell in twain as blood geysered to the ceiling. The band started playing as the fatal blow was struck. I forget the song but they were tight. Jacques’ legs and trunk continued to spray blood like a firehose into the crowd. People were crowd surfing to the front of the stage to drink from the gory fountain.
After the impressive opening number, Oderous brought it down a notch.
Oderous Urungus: “How ya’ll doing here in Athens?”
Crowd: Unintelligible noise
OU: “Isn’t REM from here? Michael Stipe, I want to suck your pipe”
Another song, this one seemed to be about killer Antartic pengiuns. In fact, one of them comes on stage and Oderous peels its face off in one swipe. Blood sprays from the eyesockets and more crowd surfing and moshing begin. The crowd is now soaked in gore. I’m watching from the back with my bro.
OU: “What’s this I hear about Marylin Manson? Do you know what the difference between Marilyn Manson and Oderous Urungus is?”
Crowd: “What’s the difference?”
OU: “Oderous isn’t a mule faced faggot! HA hahaha!!”
The crowd loved that one.
More songs. Soon, Slymenstra Hymen, the resident ‘woman’ in the band showed up on stage breathing fire, with a radioactive green glow coming from her crotch. The band finished up with a song about Jon Benet Ramsey. Oderous procured a life size replica of her corpse, pulled out a huge fake penis from his groin area, and proceeded to have sexual relations with the dead deceased corpse. Then he threw the corpse into the crowd and proceeded to ‘masturbate’ all over the crowd as some kind of goo began to spray from the fake penis. Again, people in the crowd surfed up to the front in order to be drenched. The corpse of Jon Benet was torn to shreds in the crowd.
The rest of the show was a blur. I recall their being a giant reptile named Gor Gor being on stage fighting with Techno Destructo. The moshing was intense and there was goo and gore everywhere. It was awesome.