GWAR, Twiztid lead high-intensity Rock and Shock concerts

It's a rare cinematic moment: Descending the stairs of a darkened club into an alien world of hard-thrashing bodies and a nearly impenetrable wall of sound, but this was the scene Saturday night at the Palladium, on the second official night of the Rock and Shock festival, when I walked in on Decapitated's set, and a mostly young crowd of concertgoers, many of whom had been rocking out since about 3 p.m., glistened with sweat but showed no signs of fatigue.

The sound was thick, the volume high and sound quality was muddy. Divining such things as "lyrics" or "words" was nearly impossible for most of the night, and if you didn't know the songs going in, you likely didn't leave any wiser. But if you did know the songs, this was as much revival tent as it was a concert.

Waiting for GWAR

The major draw Saturday night was the appearance of the band GWAR — the first time the band has appeared locally since the death of its lead vocalist, Davie Brockie, who performed as Oderus Urungus. There was a great deal of interest as to how the band would perform with singer Kim Dylla (Vulvatron) joining Michael Bishop (Blothar) for the lead vocals. That anticipation fed the room's energy until the headliners took the stage.

Leading up to that event, Decapitated's set gave way to a set by the band Dying Fetus, kicking off with high-intensity power chords and sustaining a momentum that carried the audience, particularly the frenzied mosh pit, for a series of songs, each one escalating the velocity over the previous. Even standing toward the back, it was easy to get caught up in the moment. It was an auditory onslaught, and that was what the crowd was there for.

The following band, Unearth, announced itself with a gloomier, percussion-heavy arrangement, and it was clear that each band was building on the energy its predecessor had sustained. If there was a weakness, it was that the set was crying out for some texture, after three similar-sounding bands in a row. Thankfully, the penultimate band, Loa, shook up the mix a bit, and while it was still clearly cut from the hard-core mold, vocalist Keith Caputo brought a different dynamic to the night's sound. Caputo has a more classic metal voice, one that wrapped itself around the sidewinder guitar to great effect, delivering the hands-down best set of the later part of the night.

And then there was GWAR. GWAR, for the unfamiliar, is as much an act of theater as it is a rock band. The musicians take on roles of monsters, superhumans and aliens, battling sinister forces with swords and other weapons, spraying the audience with fake blood in the process. Lots and lots of fake blood. Some in attendance brought trash bags to wear over their clothes.

Brockie's death was integrated into the mythology, with the band announcing that he's gone missing and they were searching for him. Dylla appeared a few songs in, aiding the band in battle against a monster by bashing him with a giant mace and telling them that she had come from the future to stop a great evil. The music was bombastic, fast-paced and powerful, and it was easy to fall into the monster-movie madness of it all.

But after much rocking and special effects, the set wore down to a moment of remembrance for Brockie — whom they called "the greatest rock 'n' roll singer who ever lived — that had the band kneeling before a projected image of his Viking funeral. It was rather touching, and lent an air of humanity to a show that had been fun and viscerally exciting, but also rather distant.

Among the Juggalos

Sunday night at The Palladium belonged to the Juggalos — the often-controversial and frequently rowdy fans of the horror-core band The Insane Clown Posse and associated acts, including that night's headliners, Twiztid — and from the reactions people had when they found out I was going, you'd think I was headed to Syria. Seriously: Friends wondered out loud for my safety, evidently forgetting that I grew up in the era of skinheads and mosh pits where people mostly left bruised and bleeding. And for the most part, the scary clown-make-up wearing concertgoers were actually rather like the audience of any other loud, aggressive brand of music, and more polite than some — the venue was so crowded that it was difficult to move around without bumping into people, a phenomenon that was met with surprising courtesy. One girl, when bumped, spilled her drink, but rather than getting mad, she accepted the apology with grace.

The only exception was a skinny young man in a Mohawk, who (presumably seeing me scribble) walked up to me and extended his middle finger into my face, leaving before I could react. I guess I should be upset, but he was trying so hard to seem dangerous that it was kind of adorable.

Get it Twiztid

I'd meant to catch four bands, but an unannounced schedule change moved everything forward, and I came just in time for the penultimate act, rapper Kung Fu Vampire. Like most of the horror-core and horror-core-related acts on the bill, Kung Fu Vampire meshes hip-hop vocal stylings with rock instrumentation, the raps scaling the sides of live bass and percussion.

Vampire's an interesting rapper, with a great deal of presence but a relaxed delivery style, leading the audience through songs such as "Nightmare Walkin'" and the over-the-top "Dead Girls Don't Say No." The lyrics — those that could be caught, although the sound was much better than it was Saturday — seem pulled sometimes from the worst horror movies imaginable, but they were so ridiculous that it's hard for any sensible person to get offended. And when he performed a cover of Sister Sledge's disco classic "We Are Family" — "I've got all my Juggalos and me" — it was hard not to smile at the sight of the rough-hewn room singing joyously.

Clown-faced horror-core duo Twiztid closed out the night, and it was clear this was the band the audience was there to see. The pair took a more aggressive stance than Kung Fu Vampire, barreling through a set with an almost frenetic propulsion.

It was a defiant and bracing set, which had the audience chanting lines such as "We don't care" and "I hate everybody" with gleeful abandon. And of course, it's hard not to think the Juggalos protest too much when apathy is proclaimed that aggressively, but there's no denying it was a cathartic moment, and the pair had the crowd well in hand.

On the way out

All told, both nights were filled with sets that were in a perpetual state of rise, an escalating assault of tension, volume and velocity. Both were a little incomprehensible to an outsider, but there was also something primal there, some sense of communal catharsis. If you didn't go in knowing much about the music, it might have been difficult to find an entry point. But if you could surrender yourself just a little bit, to the beat if nothing else, than you could leave The Palladium feeling tired but oddly, gloriously refreshed. Neither hard-core nor horror-core might be for everybody, but on the whole, it's certainly not all bad.

Email Victor D. Infante at Victor.Infante@Telegram.com and follow him on Twitter @ocvictor.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: GWAR, Twiztid lead high-intensity Rock and Shock concerts