During their Riot Fest set over the weekend, Gwar slaughtered fake figures of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, and people are apparently pissed, which is a clear sign that someone has no idea who Gwar is.
In a post on Twitter/X, the Libs of TikTok — a right-wing parody account — shared video of the performance and captioned it: “Performers at Riot Fest in Chicago, Illinois, simulated the bloody disemboweling of President Trump on stage while people cheered. This is incitement. They know exactly what they’re doing. Democrats can’t help themselves. They love promoting violence.”
Another account that goes by @hottakekaren — which could easily be a parody account in its own right — added: “Saw a friend’s video from Riot Fest—GWAR mock-beheaded Elon Musk on stage. That’s not edgy, it’s grotesque and reckless and normalizes violence against a real person. This is not okay. Riot Fest and GWAR crossed a major line.”
lol the dumbest people on the internet are mad again. pic.twitter.com/mdcbClCwF7
— Riot Fest (@RiotFest) September 22, 2025
On their official account, the Riot Fest folks have come out strong against those offended by Gwar’s on-stage antics, “BREAKING NEWS: Some dumb f—king loser won’t be going to Riot Fest ever again,” they wrote in response to someone claiming they’ll never attend the fest again over the performance.
They also wrote: “People getting mad at GWAR in the year of our lord 2025 is the funniest most pathetic f—king thing. Eat shit losers.”
For the record, Gwar has been doing this with political and pop-cultural figures for decades. I’ve personally seen them do it to avatars of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. It’s performance art.
Back in 2014, the band reminded the outside world just who the f—k they are when they incensed the crowd at Australia’s Soundwave music festival. During the performance, then-frontman Oderus Urungus (the late Dave Brockie) beheaded a depiction of then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott, spraying fake blood all over the audience.
Hellbent on really driving it home, however, the band cut the breasts off a depiction of Queen Elizabeth II, which REALLY had people angry. As Tone Deaf noted, none of this went over well either, because one thing you can always count on is Gwar being satisfyingly offensive to everyone.
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