GWAR at the Capitol Theatre -- March 26. (photo courtesy of the Capitol Theatre)
It took nearly five years to restore Davenport's Capitol Theatre to the opulent glory of old. $24 million they sunk into it – that's two dozen million – and the place is looking rightly fine and spiffy. It's almost a caricature of post-Gilded Age excessive aesthetics: an ecstasy of gold (in the elevators!), and a fantasy of marble (on the floors!), worthy of the “palace” tag envisioned by builder Henry S. Kahl. The restoration of the ornate plasterwork alone, with its detailed, hand-painted murals, was a Sistine Chapel-worthy effort that likely cost a king's ransom in wrenched backs of supine craftspeople.
It's a shame that it's all going to waste. Because something is coming, looming on the horizon like madness in the spring, leaving chaos and destruction in its wake. GWAR is coming on March 26, and there is no escape.
The GWAR Mythos is spelled out on the GWAR.net Web site:
“The story of GWAR is carved across the history of this barren and hopeless planet, but GWAR themselves are not of this world ... their story begins in the deepest reaches of outer space. Long ago, the beings who would become the rock band GWAR were part of an elite fighting force, the Scumdogs of the Universe. For eons, they served as thralls to a supreme being known only as the Master. But one by one, each future member of the band earned a glaring reputation … they were banished, sent away on a fool’s errand to conquer an insignificant shitball floating in a dark corner of the universe; the planet Earth. Once here, GWAR shaped the face of the globe, destroying and rebuilding the natural world, and giving rise to all of human history.”
GWAR seem to have taken the form of a rock band in the early '80s, around the same time that the Kahl Building and Capitol Theatre were added to the National Register of Historic Places, and during which time the building itself was in use as a “Christian Center.” How cruel the irony that an entity that cackles in the face of all human conceptions of goodness and purity is set to lay waste to this treasured spot. Perhaps it was fate. Masonic vibrations abound at this notably cube-shaped building, placed, as it were, at 330 West Third Street. The Hidden Masters are likely grinning evil grins at the impending devastation.
You see, slaves to lust that they were, the Scumdogs ended up interbreeding with apes in some Anunnaki-style shenanigans, accidentally creating the human race. “This fateful unplanned pregnancy would prove to be truly disastrous!” Ominous, portentous words indeed.
This is not a rock show. This is the culmination of human destiny as planned (poorly) by space-born derelicts, the absent fathers of humanity come back to clean up the mess they made millennia ago. As blood stains the refurbished seats, and monstrous creatures rise to shatter the new roof, the cries of the damned will echo up and down the cursed Mississippi. Humanity's gotta go, and the cleanup starts in Iowa.
The show has been set for Tuesday, March 26. It's all-ages, likely to rope in as many victims as possible. Doors open at 6 p.m., with openers/accessories Fuming Mouth and Cancer Bats starting the racket at 7 p.m. Don't wear any clothing that you don't wish to see stained with blood.
