Gig review: Gwar

"WE'VE got a lot of people to introduce you to," said Gwar frontbeing Oderus Urungus in his gruff cartoon villain's voice, "and that's a lot of people who have to die!" How brilliantly ridiculous. Touring to celebrate their 25th anniversary as a band, America's Gwar have one of the most effectively simple MOs going: dress as intergalactic demons; pretend you actually are intergalactic demons; play dumb heavy metal music.

A flavour of how hilariously stupid this all was came right at the start, as an effigy of the Queen was mutilated to the chopping chords of Horror of You. It seemed like the band had wanted to do something special for these rare UK shows, this being their first Scottish one in 17 years. "We're no good with maps," rumbled Urungus, an orc in suspender belts who wears his (fake) testes on the outside of his armour. More special guests were paraded throughout the show, including Ozombie Bin Laden ("just because he's dead, doesn't mean we can't kill 'im again!") and Lady Gaga, incongruously dressed as a toilet.

The music was almost incidental, other than as a soundtrack for ludicrous, badly performed and utterly hilarious onstage battles with giant cyborgs and what looked like an axe-wielding Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, although there were some great metal parody titles in there, including Damnation Under God and Let Us Slay.

The elaborate costumes and blood-spraying fun (the bouncers wore rain macs) added up to great pantomime fun, though, right up to the moment Urungus waddled offstage with a gruff "goodnight, human scum!" and the Bee Gees' Staying Alive piped in over the PA.