Gwar and My Own Victim at The Brewery

By Laura Karnes

Blood, guts, outrageous costumes, and rock music. Yes, that's what Louisville got when Gwar played The Brewery's Thunderdome on the first cold night of November.

If you've never seen this band before, their shows are definitely a different kind of experience than most. Gwar is a band with numerous members; some playing instruments and the rest being a part of the acts that the band does during the show.

All of the members wear huge, silly-looking costumes that look like something that you would see in a comic book or on Saturday morning cartoons.

Although the band has released several records (a couple of memorable titles: This Toilet Earth and Ragna Rock), not a lot of emphasis is placed on the music. The focal point of a Gwar show is the costumes and the various antics that the band does, such as chopping off arms, legs, and other body parts while spraying the audience members with fake blood, guts, and other types of body fluids.

While some of the band's music is actually pretty good; I don't think that they are too worried about the guitar solos or the lyrical content of their songs. Gwar and their fans seem to be pretty happy just doing their own thing. As the band says in one of their songs, "It's always one hell of a party when Ragna rock comes to town."

Louisville locals My Own Victim did a good job of warming up the crowd performing songs from their first two releases, as well as songs from a new CD that will be released in February 1997.