9/4/2015
Band: GWAR (30 Years of Tourment) @GWAROfficial
History with band: I remember seeing an article on MTV News about them 30 years ago
Venue: Iron City Birmingham
Pit Crew: Me, Chris, Chris, Chris, Frank, Julie (all names changed to protect their innocence. — yeah, right, innocence. )
First, props to the venue again. Iron City Birmingham is a top restaurant and venue. Great food and a beer selection from all the local brewers (GP, Straight To Ale, Yellowhammer, Avondale… all of them). I had a GP Snakehandler (11.4%), a beer that can easily knock a strong man down. And my burger came almost cooked right. It must be really hard to check the temp of a burger in a big fancy kitchen. Last time, for the Slayer show, it came RAAAAAAW! It was tasty, though.
Stoned Cobra! Battlecross! Butcher Babies!
And, Gwar, all for $20, now that’s a bargain! Stoned Cobra is a Birmingham group and they brought it! Battlecross is an up and coming band that is so heavy I couldn’t understand even one word. Butcher Babies has a gimmick - two outrageously hot, chick singers dressed in leather dominatrix outfits and screaming at you like you're their little bad boy! “Bad bad bad boy!! Now, get up here and crowd surf!” They knew how to stoke up the mostly sex-depraved 25-year-old crowd like gasoline on a fire. This photog, Gary Flinn, took some awesome pics of them.
Crowd!
I’d estimate 500 black concert tees and sneakers, 100 white concert tees, 50 golf shirts and cargo shorts, 25 chicks. That’s a pretty good crowd that spanned in age from a 15 year old punk rock singer (who respected this old dude's slamming) to a 75 year old woman, who bobbed her head perfectly to the Butcher Babies. It included all sorts: a 6’ 5” high school basketball player in his favorite MJ Chicago jersey, a 7’ 1” Serbian guy, a dwarf woman, and all shapes in between.
And then there was this guy:
He slammed the whole night in a teddybear getup. I’m noticing a pattern here, too: At Primus there was a shark, at Dead Milkmen a guy dressed like Richard Simmons. The weirdos come out and feel at home in a dark pit. Me too.
GWAR!
How do you explain it? Just look at the picture. Those are my pics. Here's a professional one. The music was perfectly performed from under the heavy costumes. Then there was the theater side: You can’t really explain it, except by saying there was a lot of blood spraying from garden hoses mounted in grotesque effigies of Britney Spears. They weren’t stingy with the fake blood either. The 100 white concert tees were wiped out, from here on referred to as "omygod, my t-shirt's ruined!" instead of "white". And, in between songs Gwar attacked and destroyed Facebook and Instagram and millions of kitten pictures. A public service. These guys have been doing this for 30 years! They have it nailed down, even enough to continue on after the lead singer died in June. I would understand if Iron City didn't ever invite them back, though. It was a friggin mess!
The Pit!
It roared! A thundering herd of cannibal lions! For about 3 minutes. I stand and watch for that long, to see the stamina of the average slam dancer kick in. Then it started kicking in, literally… Karate Ballet came to life in the middle of the swirling pit. Some UFC wannabe brought a mixture of round houses and “Breaking 2” moves to the center. Most moshers dodged his flying sneakers and gave him room, but I couldn’t take it! Gwar is no place for ballet silliness. I ventured near, swearing to duck and block, catch his foot, flip him like a rag doll, he wouldn’t want to do that anymore. It didn’t work out that way, and I took a foot to the head, right in the ear. I wandered off, shamed. But like I advise my kids, I rubbed some fake blood on it, quit crying and got back in the game.
The pit was mean. Chris One went down, punk rock kid went down, I went down, high school basketball player went down, everybody went down, except this one 6’4”, 250 lb angry Hawaiian-looking dude in a Heavy Metal tee. He kept charging and pushing and using his bad math grades to fuel his rage-filled stomps. I found my nemesis and next time he was to come around I’d drop him… but he ran out of breath and took a break. Right then the karate ballet kicked up again. Chris and I looked at each other and said “Dude.” That’s all we needed to say to know we were taking him out together. Chris came from the left, I came from the right, and, after one final attempt at a windmilling round house, down he toppled. He scampered from the floor like a scolded Rottweiler puppy.
Up til now, I hadn’t really felt targeted at all. For the most part the pit was respectful, and if I went down, there weren’t any hard feelings… except my ass on the floor. But this wasn’t the same mentality of Prince Aleahuaohaho.
**AND NOW A LITTLE THIRD-PERSON. Because I was out of my head.**
The 44 year-old pit junkie rounded the circle for what had to be his hundredth time. A nice cool misting of fake blood could have been refreshing, but Gwar had it warmed to a perfect 98.6. It mixed with the sweat, leaving Bret more soaked than a day at Alabama Swim Adventure.
He took a high step and another following the counter-clockwise flow of the pit. The crew he had started with wasn’t around. “Surely they didn’t all get kicked out,” he thought. Most of the nearby crowd was content standing and tracking Blothar on the stage. The tension dropped from his face, he relaxed a bit and fell into a jog. But that was stupid.
From the crowd a long, tree limb of an arm lunged and the whole tree trunk followed it. Startled, Bret grabbed for purchase on the slick skin of the angry teenager, but the weight and force were too much for his 165 lb frame. His Skechers left the floor. His fingers tried harder for a grip and found one on the Heavy Metal t-shirt. That didn’t slow down his attacker, though, and Bret bounced butt-first on the floor.
The shock of the attack quickly mutated to a rage Bret couldn’t control. He decided the best thing to do was teach that teenager a lesson about respect! It wasn’t that deeply thought out - he really didn’t want to teach him respect, he just wanted to give him a good whack across his head. Bret bolted toward the monster kid and a yell erupted from his gullet, “Hey you stupid prick!” He grabbed the Hawaiian prince by the shoulder and spun him around. But it actually wasn’t Bret that caused the boy to spin, it was the momentum of the kid's huge fist. Instinctively, Bret moved in and down. The first punch whiffed, but two others landed on the broad side of his graying head.
Before his middle-age brain could decide what to do, Bret felt hands from everywhere, hauling him off like a common criminal. Commands of “Chill out! Stop it!” rang over Gwar’s pounding beat. One set of arms found its way on top of his sweaty shoulders and around his neck in a calming, restrictive grip. But that calming grip tightened. Bret fought it by lurching back and forth. It tightened more. More. Bret reached up to find the huge sweaty, slick, smooth arms refusing to release. In a life saving effort, he focused on two things: conceding and getting air through his windpipe. “Let him go! You’re killing him!” a girl cried out. Bret hadn’t really thought of that. Maybe I’ll pass out before I die, he thought.
One more necessary breath eased through his barely opened mouth and he was released. He crashed to the floor, fingering his throat, gasping for oxygen. Hands reached under his armpits and generously lifted him up. “You okay?! Dude?!”
Bret nodded an answer then tested with a word, “Yeah.” Turning as quickly as he could, he tried to track the owner of the thick arms. Only startled faces looked on in shock. His subduer was gone.
**At this point I came back into my head.** The tall Hawaiian hulk stood right where I had attacked him. Calmly, bravely, authoritatively (or so I thought) I walked toward him. And, like any good but ignored parent, I insisted on his attention “Hey! Kid!” He regarded me cooly so I made my point. “If you want to do this,” I pointed at the swirling pit, “You gotta be cool!”
And like any normal, blameless teenager, he lifted his palms up and said, “It wasn’t me.”
“What! It wasn’t you?! Right! Look,” I insisted, yelling above Gwar, “Just be cool! You want to do this, then be cool!” I pushed a finger into his shoulder and walked off.
So, at the risk of getting choked out, I had made my point - Be cool.
Not to be defeated, I went back into the pit. After a couple laps around, I left to find my crew and drink in some air. As I made my way off, I caught a glance from Karate Ballet Dude. He looked a little wary of me and then went into a kick routine.
Not to be defeated, I went back into the pit. After a couple laps around, I left to find my crew and drink in some air. As I made my way off, I caught a glance from Karate Ballet Dude. He looked a little wary of me and then went into a kick routine.
I have no idea who put that choke hold on me. It was a surprise grab at the beginning and a foggy release at the end, like a fish getting yanked from a pond. I’ve never been that close to choking out. Thinking back on it, though, it very well could’ve been the Karate Ballet, UFC wannabe who happened to be... *gulp*... the target of me being uncool.
Hmmm… lesson to self. Be cool, Bret, be cool.
It's Monday night, three days later... I'm still sore. If you think Spartan Racing is tough, try slam dancing for 3 hours.
PEACE!
Hmmm… lesson to self. Be cool, Bret, be cool.
It's Monday night, three days later... I'm still sore. If you think Spartan Racing is tough, try slam dancing for 3 hours.
PEACE!
