Hadad’s Lake played host once again to this years 7th Annual GWAR B-Q presented by Ring Dog Rescue and Slave Pit Inc. The one day metal festival isn’t your typical festival, being hosted at a water park fans are encouraged to swim in the pools while watching the festival. The 3500+ fans also were treated to a costume contest, the Spew-O-Lympics, extreme sport exhibitions, and a tattoo alley that they could participate in and enjoy. The festival itself which was hosted this year by Samantha Mack and Sirius XM Liquid Metal’s Shawn Winkler was spread across three stages properly named, Slutman Pavilion, Scumdog Stage, and Slaughterama Stage. One of the many highlights of the day was Phil Anselmo filling in for EYEHATEGOD’s vocalist Mike IX who was unable to make the show due to health issues. The Dillinger Escape Plan also had to have a guest vocalist fill in as Dylan Lawson filled in for Greg Puciato, whose flight was canceled leaving him stranded in Los Angeles. The band has announced that they will be calling it quits at the end of their North American tour which will wrap up in November. It doesn’t look like Richmond fans will have another chance to see the full lineup as the tour will not come back thru Virginia. Other bands to hit the stages thru out the day included; Against Me!, American Nightmare, Lagwagon, August Burns Red, Murphy’s Law, Occultist, Brain Tentacles, Eat the Turnbuckle, Mobile Deathcamp, Sawyer Family, The Death of Rock ‘n Roll, and Ramming Speed.
GWAR closed out the days events on the Scumdog stage, bringing with them the Intergalactic Wrestling Championship belt to defend. Sleazy P. Martini, GWAR’s manager informed the fans that the next president would be chosen during the set thru a series of to the death wrestling matches. The presidential nomination was also decided during GWAR’s set Saturday which saw current president Barack Obama lose both his defending belt and head at the start of GWAR’s set, and later saw Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fight to the death with Sleazy P declaring himself the victor. As with any GWAR show the fans were left covered in copious amounts of red, purple, blue, and green ooze sprayed from the many props on stage which makes a GWAR show….well a GWAR show. GWAR has announced a string of tour dates which will kick off in Cincinnati, OH in September, a complete list of dates can be found HERE.
GWAR Setlist:
Madness At The Core Of Time
Womb With A View
Jagermonsta
Saddam a Go-Go
Bring Back the Bomb
Nitro-Burnin’ Funny Bong
The Private Pain of Sawborg Destructo
Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Felt So Good
Hail, Genocide!
Ham on the Bone
Sexecutioner
Sick Of You
Slaughterama
Richmond’s own five time Grammy nominated Lamb of God closed out the festival with a fifteen song set that showed the hometown crowd just why they are at the top of the metal scene. Taking the stage and crowd by storm Randy Blythe and company kicked things off with “Walk With Me In Hell” off of their Grammy Award nominated album Sacrament.Randy dedicated the song “Laid to Rest” to the GWAR character Oderus Urungus who was giving a viking funeral at the 5th Annual GWAR B-Q after the death of Dave Brockie. The set closed out with “Redneck” turning Hadad’s Lake into one big mosh pit and leaving fans covered in dust as they headed for the shuttles to take them back to the parking lots. Lamb of God will tour South America September, as well as tour with Slipknot on their Australian tour in October. For all things Lamb of God check HERE.
Lamb of God Setlist:
Walk with Me in Hell
Ruin
512
Engage the Fear Machine
Now You’ve Got Something to Die For
Ghost Walking
Blacken the Cursed Sun
Anthropoid
Descending
Set to Fail
Hourglass
Laid to Rest
Still Echoes
The Faded Line
Redneck
