Gwar @ The Chance, Poughkeepsie NY – 5.28.08

It’s been about 2 or 3 years now since the last time I saw the mighty Gwar. This was my third Gwar show and each time, it’s been such an entertaining night! Gwar put on one of the best live shows out there, and most creative might I add. The band always seem to stop by at the Chance on their tours, and the staff always seem to love the band. The bouncers were all prepared with garbage bags wrapped around their heads & bodies, and the fans were prepared as well. About 50 percent of the crowd had white shirts, ready to get bloody and get peed on. The other half either didn’t care what shirt they wore or didn’t know what was gonna happen. I certainly wasn’t going to get anywhere near the stage.

The band finally came on stage around 9:20pm and played for almost an hour and a half. The audience was greeted by our “fearless” President, George Dubya. Thankfully, Oderus and Gwar quickly shut him up and chopped off his head! Out of all the songs that Gwar played, I actually only knew about 6 or 7 songs. All the rest of the songs were new to me. They played a few songs off of Scumdogs of the Universe, including one of my favorites “Sick of You.” I believe they didn’t play anything off America Must Be Destroyed and I was kind of disappointed in that since that’s my favorite Gwar album. I was very amused at all the people they were killing on stage. I believe the Hilter/Jesus character was my favorite.

On the photography side of things, I love shooting from the balcony at the Chance. I can shoot the crowd, shoot the band and shoot both as well. But you need to have the right lenses to shoot up there. That little pit area that they have the bouncers stand would suck for a photo pit. The stage is extremely high and you would be too close to the band. Gwar is a REALLY hard band to shoot though. Half the time you have to worry about back lighting, smoke, fast moment and getting your camera wrecked from blood. Thankfully I had the whole show to shoot and pick out my best shots. Believe me, there was a lot of deleting going on. I still managed to get a lot of excellent shots despite it being a hard show to shoot. I was shooting mainly in the 2000 ISO – 3200 ISO range the entire set. I only used my 18-70mm lens once to get a few shots of the crowd and an overall shot of the band. The rest of the time I was shooting with the 70-200mm f2.8 lens.

Some people like Gwar mainly for the stage antics and all the blood & gore, and I love that stuff as well! But I also love their music and grew up listening to the band. I always wanted to shoot a Gwar show so I was extremely happy that the band hooked me up with passes. Thanks to Dave Brockie, Jeremy Smith and Jack Flanagan.

The Entire Gallery

Buy Prints/ License Photos

Prints in this set are available for purchase! Just email which photo(s) you’re interested in (please provide alt tag or #) and I’ll give you a quote. Photos are also available for licensing to your website, magazine, Facebook page, etc. as well.

Tags: dave brockie, gwar, gwar beyond hell, gwar the chance, gwar tour, hudson valley, new york, poughkeepsie, the chance