GWAR Bring Utter ‘Madness’ To New York City With Battlecross + Iron Reagan

When GWAR come to town, metal fans trade their black t-shirts for white ones in hopes to be drenched in the bloodbath that is a GWAR show. The Scum Dogs themselves took New York City by storm over the weekend at Irving Plaza. Battlecross and Iron Reagan served as stellar support to kick off the night of pure mayhem.

The tone for the night was set as the entire crowd sang Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ in unison before GWAR took the stage. The group of other worldly creatures kicked off their set with ‘Madness at the Core of Time’ off of their brand new album ‘Battle Maximus.’ They also performed other new tracks ‘They Swallowed the Sun,’ ‘Torture,’ the title track ‘Battle Maximus’ and ‘Bloodbath,’ the last of which described the night as a whole.

With a GWAR show comes classic battles and casualties. Some victims of the night included Queen Elizabeth, who was royally violated and the new royal baby, who got tossed around the stage for a bit. Justin Bieber also got dismantled and provided some blood-soaked fun to many metal fans' delight.

Front-thing Oderus Urungus and his crew also fought off some mutant, alien creatures  onstage including the gigantic “Mr. Perfect” who was obliterated and drenched the fans.  As Oderus stated after his  victory, Mr. Perfect was “Perfect at getting his f----ing a—  kicked.”

GWAR ended the night with their last casualty of the night by beheading the Pope, as well as performing ‘Sick of You,’ a rendition of the Who’s ‘Baba O’Riley’ and a cover of Billy Ocean’s ‘Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car.’ As GWAR fans learned, “Billy Ocean is metal as f---.”

Supporting act Battlecross hail from Detroit but are no strangers to New York. They were recently in town with Death Angel at Webster Hall and played an intimate show at Brooklyn’s Saint Vitus earlier in the year. The members of Battlecross have uncontrollable energy onstage.

During the vigorous set, frontman Kyle “Gumby” Gunther dove into the crowd. Papa Gumby also made his way to the crowd at the end of the set and serenade the crowd with ‘Push Pull Destroy.’ With the road warriors of Battlecross on the scene, the future of metal is in good hands.

With heavy “Reagan” chants before their set, Iron Reagan took the stage for one hell of a performance. Fronted by Municipal Waste singer Tony Foresta, Iron Reagan delivers speedy hardcore punk metal. With their setlist written on paper plates, the band got fans going even though their swifty songs were between 30 seconds to a minute long.

A longer song they performed was their cover of Slayer’s ‘Can’t Stand You’ which they dedicated to Jeff Hanneman. The crowd also dug the band's rendition of Cannibal Corpse’s ‘A Skull Full of Maggots.’ At the end of the set, Foresta took apart the drum set and threw a piece into the crowd. It doesn’t get any more punk than that.

Check Out Photos of GWAR, Battlecross + Iron Reagan Performing in NYC:

GWAR:

Battlecross:

Iron Reagan: