words by Jeff Schmuck

photos by CKO

I love GWAR. They are simply one of the coolest, raunchiest, and most entertaining metal bands one can ask for in this day and age of boring and lame bands like Nickelback and Jack Johnson. For those of you who’ve never heard of them, GWAR are a group of renegade space pirates that were marooned on earth millions of years ago (but most of them are actually from Virginia). After landing here, they killed all of the dinosaurs for food and then created the human race by having sex with the animals that were left. This pissed off God quite a bit, so he froze them in Antarctica for millions of years until the over use of hairspray by glam metal bands of the 80’s burned a hole in the ozone layer and unfroze them. GWAR then learned to play nasty, loud heavy metal music and now spreads their reign of terror by traveling the globe putting on a theatrical rock show where they cut off the heads and limbs of various undesirable figures from history such as Adolf Hitler, George W Bush, and Paris Hilton, and spray their blood and various other body fluids all over the crowd. It’s quite the site.

GWAR!

I recall the first time I saw GWAR, or rather, the first time I was supposed to. I had bought a ticket a month prior and was eagerly anticipating getting covered in fake blood, when someone stole my wallet out of my backpack on the day of the show. Fortunately, my ticket wasn’t in there, but my ID was. Being that GWAR was playing at a bar that night, as hard as I pleaded, the bouncers wouldn’t let me in without ID. I scalped my ticket and went home, trying not to slip in the puddles my tears were creating on the way.

A few years later I rectified the situation, and have been covered in their goo many times since. A definite highlight of my existence came at the SIA tradeshow a few years back when GWAR was appearing for Sims snowboards after they produced a board with pictures of them on it. GWAR couldn’t fit through the doorways of the tradeshow hall in their massive costumes, so every morning, there they were, taking their costumes off outside the hall, dragging them through the door, and putting them back on before proceeding to rape and pillage the Mandalay Bay Convention Centre by chugging Jack Daniels at ungodly times of the morning, drawing penises on the Vivid girls’ autographed posters and eventually, getting thrown out of the show after an altercation with Airwalk’s mascot.

But none of this would prepare me for last night in Montreal, when we were excitedly but nervously led backstage to hang out with Oderus Urungus, the lead singer of GWAR.

Schmuck & Doug engage in various sex acts with their new friend

Because we take GWAR pretty seriously, we thought it would be the right thing to do to give Oderus an offering in the hope that he would spare the sport of skiing once they were done destroying the human race, so we brought him a single Salomon Thruster covered in NS stickers. In addition, because skis are shaped like swords, we asked GWAR if they would be down to kill someone with it, and Oderus accepted our offer and said he'd chop George Bush’s head off with it during the show. We practically shit our pants in excitement.

Doug with the killing tool

the ski awaits its victim

Shortly after our meeting, GWAR hit the stage, complete with the NS ski resting against the drum set for the first four songs as we eagerly anticipated the President’s arrival. When Mr. Bush finally sauntered on stage, freeskiing was taken to a whole new level as Oderus grabbed our ski and decapitated the bastard in front of thousands of screaming fans, none of whom were louder and happier than us. Check out the video…

Download Quicktime M4V (5 MB)

The NS staff would like to take the time to thank GWAR and their managers for one of the sweetest night of their lives, and to call anyone reading this who is too scared or too stupid to go see GWAR next time they come to your town a great big pussy!

Doug, Jason, Chris & Jeff before...

...and after

Download Quicktime M4V (24 MB)

GWAR takes out Osama Bin Laden to end the show