GWAR | Max Watts
Descending the stairs of Max Watts is no unfamiliar feat for a Melbourne metalhead, the familiar sight of the Boris gig they have as a feature before you turn into the band room, and the usual, comforting smell of booze and sweat flooding your senses. My timing was rather perfect, as I walked in, the opener DREGG took to the stage. Abrasive, loud, anarchic and benevolent, they are a local band you simply must know, or in my eyes you are completely out of the loop. Integrating political satire and industrial noise while treating the stage like their own experiment in chaos theory, these guys are fucking insane (to put it lightly).
What stands out most in a DREGG set to me is their ability to balance the delirium with intention. Delving into their tracks they tackle the lived, worn experiences of various tumultuous hardships in life, such as addiction with a reckless mindset, the comfort in being filth, all while aiming every note with absolute precision. They played through some of my personal favourite tracks “Dog Cunt” and “PCP Wednesdays” off their most recent album, and getting to feel the reverberation of each chord in the midst of a furious pit elevates the listening experience uniquely. As the set wrapped up, the room was left buzzing and sweat soaked, wandering around in a daze as the house lights hummed slowly back to life.
The time between the two bands seemed to fly by without me realising, I jumped to the merch stall to pick up a DREGG shirt, being sure to tie it to my jorts safely (as to not get covered in food dye during the next show) and paced around the pit impatiently until the lights once again dimmed. On stage trawled a ring master-esque character, addressing the audience as “Lhabias and Genitalia’s,” before breaking into a dialogue expanded from the intro of “The Great Circus Train Disaster”. I lost track of the words as the band began to take the stage, and the roar of the audience completely overwhelmed any other noise. My jaw was on the floor, finally getting to see the absurdly incredible costumes the band don in real life almost imploded my tiny brain.
Before I could begin comprehending what was going on, the ringmaster’s head was torn off and we were sprayed with an onslaught of blood, spurting mercilessly from his neck. Bodies surfed overhead, the pit kept mutating into new shapes and the front row screamed every line like it was gospel as fake blood dripped off their skin alongside the sweat. GWAR fed off of it, doubling down with their thrashing riffs and gore soaked vocals, it all merged into one visceral spectacle.
My absolute favourite parts of the set were getting to see my personal least favourite humans of all time getting brutally dismembered. First off, Elon Musk getting decapitated by the band’s bodyguard BoneSnapper, and then later in the set Donald Trump getting disembowelled by The Berserker Blothar whilst BoneSnapper swung his intestines around like a lasso. Sounds grotesque, but if anything it was hilariously cathartic to witness and get to mosh to the sight of.
If all of this wasn’t already an insane triumph packed into a live show to begin with, the band’s ability to play so articulately throughout the sea of anarchy. Each song is brutal yet so sharp in execution, tracks like “Womb With a View” and “Bad Bad Men” had my neck snapping in time with a permanent grin plastered across my face. They closed out the set on “Sick of You”, but not before blasting off cannons of blood to spatter every head and body in the room, hurling off their final insults in the most loving way possible. When the lights came back up, everyone looked like they had survived the most fun apocalypse imaginable.
I truly have no notes, I think that is going to be the most memorable gig in my entire lifetime. It had everything I love in the world packed into one; incredible prosthetics, gross looking puppets, blood, gore, brutally murdering corrupt politicians, drugs and heavy metal. I implore you to go on a deep dive into GWAR’s lore, try and get your hands on the comics or even check out their website, they’re so funny and talented it would be a shame if you went the rest of your life without at least experiencing them once. There are concerts, and then there is GWAR, a band that turns metal into mythology, gore into theatre and bedlam into an art form. Long may the Scumdogs of the Universe reign.
LISTEN TO DREGG:
LISTEN TO GWAR: