Costumed thrash metal band Gwar treated audiences at Soundwave 2014 over the weekend with their new spectacle-driven stage show.
Among the gory set-pieces that saw “their token coating of fake blood running about 15 rows deep,” as Tone Deaf’s Brisbane reviewer remarked, was a centrepiece in which an effigy of Tony Abbott was beheaded on stage by ‘undying chaos-demon’ and Gwar frontman Oderus Urungus.
While the visage of the decapitated Prime Minister comically spraying faux plasma into the audience delighted the Soundwave crowd, the stunt has “appalled” a group of Government supporters who have attacked the band and their antics for their “extraordinary breach of good behaviour and standards,” as FasterLouder reports.
In a post on their official website titled ‘Gross Abuse Of Hospitality By Visiting Rock Band‘, the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy criticises Gwar for “decapitating and mutilating effigies of our Prime Minister and Queen,” the latter stunt involving the British monarch’s breasts being hacked off in a hail of fake lifeblood.
“This act – an extraordinary breach of good behaviour and standards – is particularly offensive coming from visitors, who have been extended Australian hospitality,” said Jai Martinkovits, Executive Director of the organisation, which dedicates itself to preserving Australia’s current constitutional monarchy and systems of government. “This kind of irresponsible and hateful behaviour has the potential to incite violence both in Australia and abroad.”
“Imagine the public outcry, both from Democrats and Republicans, were an Australian band to behave similarly towards the President and First Lady of the United States,” adds Martinkovits. “Gwar, as public figures, are no doubt role models to many impressionable young people. This kind of irresponsible and hateful behaviour has the potential to incite violence both in Australia and abroad.”
The statement calls on “Australians who condemn this behaviour” to email the Soundwave festival to “make their concerns known.” Odd considering everyone knows that promoter AJ Maddah’s twitter is where all the festival action really goes down.
Just as it did when a very pissed off Maddah (temporarily) booted Sydney band Thy Art Is Murder from the Soundwave 2014 tour after they risked causing a near-riot, encouraging their audience to “smash security, wreck the barrier and fuck shit up,” in the words of the Soundwave boss.
UPDATE: Gwar leader and “affirmed head-chopper” has responded to the controversy in an official statement following claims the band and its management have received ‘numerous’ death threats, including on “wishing them all to die a fiery death in a bush crash.”
The tongue-in-cheek statement reads:
“We were just playing our show in Brisbane and this guy with giant ears wanders out onstage and tells us to go back to Antarctica, so naturally I removed his head from his shoulders. But what was really surprising was that it grew back and I had to chop it off again at Sydney Soundwave. So we are waiting to see what happens tonight.
Will it grow back again? Will it come back as a Koala bear? And what about the poor Queen? We chopped her tits off and stomped the royal baby to death, and all people seem to care about is this Abbott guy. I tell you this, if you could harvest the power of the wind with this dude’s ears, then you could create a machine that would move time and space and enable all the asylum seekers to enjoy Caesar salad every night. And also not have dogs set on them.”
There’s every chance that the Tony Abbott mannequin will lose his head again when Gwar Bring their metal theatrics to Sydney’s Factory Theatre tonight, the first of two Soundwave 2014 Sidwaves the band play this week; headlining a bill that features Amon Amarth, Satyricon, and The Black Dahlia Murder.
Gwar’s blood-soaked show, and the rest of the Soundwave 2014 lineup, hit Melbourne and Adelaide this weekend (view the revised set times below), before the festival wraps up in Perth, at it’s new home at Arena Joondalup.
Maddah has also hinted that the Perth leg could be Soundwave’s first and last at the new site after ongoing battles with Perth’s Claremont Council, while indicating that the annual event would be scaling back to an “East Coast only” festival next year. ”We’re looking at 4 cities,” Maddah recently tweeted of plans for Soundwave 2015 – “I count Adelaide as East Coast.”
(Image: Maria de Vera. Source: Soundwave 2014 Sydney photo gallery)
Gwar Soundwave 2014 Sidewaves
w/ special guests Amon Amarth, Satyricon, and The Black Dahlia Murder
WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY – SYDNEY, FACTORY THEATRE – Licensed All Ages
www.ticketek.com.au / www.factorytheatre.com.au
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 27 – MELBOURNE, 170 RUSSEL – 18+
www.oztix.com.au / www.170russell.com
Soundwave 2014 Set Times – Melbourne
View/download the Melbourne Soundwave Map here
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Soundwave 2014 Set Times – Adelaide
View/download the Adelaide Soundwave Map here
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Soundwave 2014 Set Times – Perth
View/download the Perth Soundwave Map here
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