PARTY CANNON
I first came across Party Cannon on a Bloodstock poster, their garishly bright multicoloured logo popping out from the endless sea of monochromatic thorny fonts, looking more like something lifted from the packaging in a Sainsbury’s birthday aisle. It’s a thing of beauty.
tony – vox
Craig Robinson – guitar
Mike McLaughlin – guitar
Chris Ryan – bass
Martin Gazur – drums
GWAR
Before the gig I’m passed a message from GWAR’s PR to ensure I know what I’m getting myself into whilst making sure I bring a protective cover for my camera. I’m prepared, or at least I think I am; I’m wearing plain black clothing, have an oversized rain cover for the gear, and shoes with good grip. GWAR are a band of barbarian interplanetary warriors – ‘scumdogs of the universe’, banished to earth to enslave and destroy the human race. We all know that. With that said, I hear the blood they drown their worshippers in is sticky, so maybe I should’ve brought plimsolls. Too late now.
As GWAR step out, to a first-timer, it feels like an entire shelf of Games Workshop has come to life, or maybe what would happen if all of the Power Rangers villains had given up fighting giant robotic Zords and instead come together to make metal. The props, time and sheer stagecraft that so obviously goes into a GWAR show is insanely impressive, but so too is the ability of each member to shred the way they do whilst burdened with several kilograms of latex. OPENER
GWAR admit they’re not as much a touring band as a travelling theatre troupe, a self-described ‘joke with no punchline’ that draw major influences from surrealist groups like Monty Python, putting the uncool and uncanny at the heart of everything they create. Despite the untimely death of long-time frontman, founding member and driving force Dave Brockie, A.K.A ‘Oderus Urungus’ in 2014, the band have continued, with 25 members having played the various characters over a period spanning five decades.
As the rest of the crowd lurches forward for one last deluge, I take a step back. The opening bars of AC DC’s ‘If You Want Blood’
Let Us Slay
Meat Sandwich
Immortal Corrupter
Ratcatcher
Blöthar the Berserker – vox
Pustulus Maximus – guitar, vox
Balsac the Jaws of Death – guitar, vox
Beefcake the Mighty – bass, vox
Jizmak de Gusha – drums
REVIEW & PHOTOGRAPHY: ROB CARMIER
