By ‘Tampa’ Earl Burton, Journalist, and Brent Michael, Photographer – Rock At Night Tampa
Live Review: GWAR with Helmet, The Dwarves, and Blood Vulture – The Ritz Ybor, Tampa, Florida – November 16, 2025
It isn’t often that you get a concert that spans the spectrum of rock music (and ages, for that matter). Most of the time, fans get bands that are similar in genre, and that is great for drawing in a particular audience. Rare is the concert that features a diverse and exciting lineup, such as the one rock fans in Ybor City received on Sunday night, as veteran rockers GWAR and Helmet, along with some assistance from relative whippersnappers The Dwarves and Blood Vulture, appeared at The Ritz.
Helmet, GWAR Headline the Bill
Nineties rockers Helmet were the third band on the bill for the night, and they certainly did not waste any time getting to business. The band hit hard and hit fast over their roughly sixty-minute set, and they did get in the requisite notable tunes such as “Unsung,” “Wilma’s Rainbow,” and “In the Meantime.” But it was another aspect that Helmet brought – or instead, did not bring – to the stage that has become a peeve of mine.
When people come to a show, they may not be ardent fans of the group. It would behoove these acts, even if they have been around for more than thirty years like Helmet has, to point out when they were playing new(ish) material that maybe their audience doesn’t know. This has become increasingly common when I’m at shows, and these bands need to remember that there is an audience out there.
You might have thought that Helmet were the headliners after they completed their set, but the roar that went up for GWAR indicated who the star of the show was. The band is on tour to support their first recorded material in three years, the EP The Return of Gor Gor, and they came prepped with all the accoutrements that the band has become famous for in over forty years of performing. Spewing blood (simulated?), other “secretions,” various acts of dismemberment, and general gore are routinely shot over the audience, but it is all in telling a particular story.
In The Return of Gor Gor, GWAR happens upon a circus train wreck, discovering an egg that they have some discussions about what to do with (Eat it? Fuck it? They’re not sure…). In the end, they decide to hatch said egg, which delivers a new T. rex named Gor Gor, addicted to the crack that the band has fed it, and they (alongside the evil circus ringleader) must wait to see which side the T. Rex wants to join…got all that?
Besides the fantastic notions of what the show is about, there is a fact about GWAR that many people do not recognize: GWAR is rock’s answer to the Harlem Globetrotters.
The Harlem Globetrotters, while among the most entertaining and hilarious performers in history, are also among the best basketball teams in sports history. Many people forget that, long ago, the Globetrotters would take on legitimate professional basketball teams and trounce them. Today’s Globetrotters aren’t seen for their talents, much like the band on stage Sunday night.
GWAR is much like them in that, if you stripped away the costumes, the gore, and the spewage, they are a damn good heavy metal band. They were able to rip through some classics such as “Bring Back the Bomb,” “Metal Metal Land,” and “America Must Be Destroyed” (that song works particularly well with their sentiments about the country’s leadership). They would have been just as powerful without all the theatrics. The theatrics DO add a bit more to the production, however, and it made for an excellent show.
The Dwarves, Blood Vulture Excellent Opening Features
The two bands that opened the show for Helmet and GWAR continued the diversity initiative featured on Sunday, with punk rockers The Dwarves and doom metal merchants Blood Vulture serving as excellent openers.
The Chicago native and San Francisco-based The Dwarves went on a blitzkrieg of tracks from their catalog that stretches back to 1990. While they only had roughly thirty minutes on The Ritz stage, The Dwarves were full out, stomp the gas punk rock, squeezing in roughly fifteen songs for their set. “Pimp” and “Devil’s Level” were the particular highlights of the show. Still, there was one nitpicky downside: the vocalist, Blag Dahlia, constantly harped about how “they were a punk band that didn’t do sound checks” while simultaneously harping at the Ritz sound crew about how the monitors weren’t giving them what they wanted. It wasn’t a very “punk rock” thing for the band to do.
If The Dwarves only got about thirty minutes to lay down their aural assault on The Ritz audience, New York’s Blood Vulture got even less with their four-song set. Granted, the band’s tunes were a little longer than the quick hitters from The Dwarves, and they fully embraced the sludgy, doom metal sound with their work from their debut album, Die Close. They also portrayed a story that could have come straight from GWAR’s idea book.
Blood Vulture is a “vampire rock” band (“This song is about sucking blood,” vocalist Jordan Olds introduced each song in that manner), following the story of an ancient vampire who has sunk into reclusiveness from a world that is constantly changing. The songs from Die Close tell this story quite well, especially “Burn for It,” which toned down the sludginess a bit and rocked out. Considering this band was only founded this year, it will be interesting to see where they go.
The four-hour-plus show at The Ritz in Ybor City on Sunday night had something for everyone, and the crowd was highly appreciative of the efforts of all four bands. Whether it was horror metal, “vampire rock,” guns blazing punk stylings, or Nineties/Aughts era hard rock, The Ritz was replete with all of this in an entertaining show. It is going to be a long time before Ybor City is besieged by such a diverse list of artists again!
PHOTO GALLERY
- Hard Rock Rising Crowns Champion on Wednesday at the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa - November 20, 2025
- GWAR, Helmet Highlight Diverse Lineup Sunday at The Ritz Ybor - November 19, 2025
- Chatting with Aussie artist Chez - November 13, 2025
