GWAR Photo Gallery: Brisbane Good Things Festival

There are bands you watch, and there are bands you survive. GWAR sits firmly in the second category.

Brisbane’s Good Things crowd packed tight under the shaded stage, knowing full well what they were in for. We caught the whole thing: the laughs, the shock, the fake blood arcs and the absolute commitment to chaos that only GWAR can deliver.

Across the tour, the warning signs were the same: plastic covers on the gear, security wearing ponchos, photographers bracing themselves like they were entering a storm. By Brisbane, the ritual was familiar, but the crowd’s anticipation was even sharper. When GWAR stomped out in full monster armour, the place shifted instantly from festival set to interdimensional theatre.

What followed was part concert, part battlefield. Red spray shot across the pit. Characters in oversized, grotesque costumes hacked, slashed and strutted through scenes that felt half metal opera, half fever dream. At one point someone dressed like a Viking ended up crowd surfing overhead, shield and all. Just another day in GWAR’s universe.

Musically, the band delivered a tight, punishing set: The Great Circus Train Disaster, Metal Metal Land, Crack in the Egg, El Presidente, Fuck This Place, Mother Fucking Liar, Womb With a View, one unidentified track, Lot Lizard and Sick of You.

What makes GWAR stand apart at festivals like Good Things is not just the spectacle. It is the way the crowd becomes part of the show. Brisbane was not watching passively; they were absorbed into the madness, roaring back at every staged execution, every riff and every spray.

Above is the full gallery from Brisbane. A snapshot of a band who treat every set as a world to destroy, rebuild and drench. Scroll on, and be grateful your screen cannot get soaked.