On a warm Southern California evening of October 17, 2013, a crowd was forming outside The Observatory. The Observatory in Santa Ana, California consists of two stages, one is a hole in the wall tiny room called the Constellation Room and the bigger a nicer stage is called The Observatory. The doors bolted open and as Tim Kasher (of Cursive) was getting ready to perform in front of a huge audience of fifteen people in the Constellation Room, the crowd rushed straight passed it into The Observatory room to witness the performance of the almighty GWAR! This concert was like the 90’s classic video game for Sega Genesis Beavis and Butt-head, but instead of finding ripped up concert tickets so they can see GWAR, the audience was forced to listen to three hours of mind blowing metal bands before GWAR took control of the stage.
The crowd was first invaded by A Band of Orcs. After conquering the realm of Santa Cruz, California in 2006, the Gore-Stained Axe Tribe members from Hirntodia consisting of Gogog Bloodthroat, Cretos Filthgrinder, Hulg ElfRipper, Oog Skullbasher and Gronk! Discovered the magical sounds of heavy metal, they have mastered this art and roamed out to pillage the stages of the world. The Great Gzoroth has spared the humans who have welcomed these Orcs to their village stages. Promoting their latest album Adding Heads to the Pile, A Band of Orcs gave an amazing performance with wicked guitar solos and a few stage antics. Gogog’s battle axe that was turned into a microphone was an awesome stage prop concept. A Band of Orcs put on such a great performance many wouldn’t minded watching a show with them as a headliner, so let’s hope they come back to southern California again soon. The only reservation about their set, which also may be because they were not a headliner, was that they lacked a background for their music to add to the atmosphere. They should think of creating a back drop with a cave of some sort, it would definitely set the mood a bit better than seeing the other band’s banners fly behind them through their set. If you are so lucky to get ravaged by A Band of Orcs at a village stage near you, do yourself a favor and go to the show!
Next to dominate the stage was Iron Reagan, a hardcore/ thrash metal band that may look and sound familiar. Promoting their debut album Worse than Dead, not only did they crossover their music, they also merged bands. Consisting of members from Municipal Waste and Darkest Hour, the 5-piece band tore up the Santa Ana stage. The band covered their whole entire album in one set or maybe had a set that consisted of 40 songs. Each song did not last longer than two minutes and even some clocking in at about a minute length. Even with their short songs they managed to fill the room with energy and they audience responded with some crazy mosh pits. Iron Regan was able to commend the crowd with ease and will soon be joining death metallers Exhumed for yet another tour!
Now it was time to change the pace once again with some deathcore metal from Whitechapel. The large portion of the crowd in attendance was anticipating the 6-piece band from Tennessee performance. Some fans were even clamoring about how amazing their live performance is. They opened things up with “Make It Bleed”off their 2012 self-titled album Whitechapel. The crowd went nuts from the energy that the band projected out Throughout their set Whitechapel energy level was enjoyable to watch. Phil Bozeman’s clean vocals were excellent and really added to their music as well. Perhaps the only let down besides a crazy light show with strobes the band didn’t seem to fit in very well with the bill of bands performing. This is not at all any knock on Whitechapel, but they seem to not be as theatrical band as the others which performed. Needless to say this was a diverse crowd of metal fans and there was a great deal of love to go around for Whitechapel. Mosh pits were at a peak with some insane body surfing all over the room. With an already impressive résumé fans are gearing up for Whitechapel’s firth studio album to be released sometime in 2014.
The evening closed out with a band that needed no introductions, GWAR. Their recently release Battle Maximus is the first album released since the passing of longtime member Cory Smoot aka Flattus Maximus. The tale of this tour focuses on GWAR conquering the villain Mr. Perfect who is eager to remove the singer Oderus Urungus’s testicles. Along the way, the band tortured and killed various monsters that stood in the way but the crowds favorite was the theatrical death of Justin Bieber on stage. GWAR covered some of their new material off their latest album but also performed classics such as “Bring Back the Bomb”, “Ham on the Bone” and closing out the night with an encore of “Sick of You”, and covers of “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car” by Billy Ocean cover and “Teenage Wasteland” by The Who. For some this was the first time witnessing GWAR on stage rather than on video, for others one of just many times witnessing a mind blowing and entertaining set by the band. The experiences only leaves you thinking you can’t wait for the another GWAR show and to see what they have in store for the world next!
Written by Karina Diane Parker
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rob skotis, iron Reagan bass, is our grandson…the pics were great…caught his spirit…