When it comes to shocking audiences, GWAR doesn’t do anything halfway, and their latest show at Riot Fest in Chicago proves it. The heavy metal band, famous for their grotesque costumes and theatrical gore, left festival-goers both thrilled and horrified last week.
Videos from the performance quickly went viral, showing the band’s usual shocking antics. In one scene, a member of GWAR decapitated a mannequin of Elon Musk dressed in a DOGE T-shirt, wielding a fake chainsaw while “blood” sprayed into the crowd. Later, the group staged a mock disembowelment of a Donald Trump effigy.
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For fans, these stunts are classic GWAR; over-the-top, cartoonish, and meant to entertain. But some critics on social media accused the band of glorifying violence, pointing fingers at their gory stage show as going too far.
GWAR has been performing in this outrageous style since 1984. Over their 40-year career, the band has killed off prop versions of every U.S. president, along with famous figures like Taylor Swift, Hillary Clinton, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, and even Jesus Christ.
Their theatrical “murders” are part of the absurdist spectacle that defines the band’s identity.
Responding to the backlash, a GWAR representative told the New York Post: “Normalizing violence? Humans don’t need GWAR for that. There’s nothing normal about the Looney Toon violence performed on our stage. GWAR is an absurdist spectacle.”
Riot Fest also weighed in on the conversation, taking a playful jab at the outrage. On X (formerly Twitter), the festival wrote: “Like I know this is a rage-bait engagement farming account, but ‘GWAR crossed a major line’ is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.”