Halloween night is one of the bigger party nights of the year, yet it’s very nature separates itself from the other booze-addled bouts of self-destruction which populate the Twin Cities resident’s party schedules. Halloween demands a certain tone, an atmosphere not just of getting drunk and silly, but doing so in costumes, with attention to fear and spookiness. Standing around with friends playing beer pong is not going to cut it this weekend, oh no: You’re going to have to toss ping-pong balls into open skulls and chug blood and brain juice, or something fiendish like that. At the very least, throw on Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the background, but please, get into the spirit one way or another. Despite popular belief, Halloween is not an excuse to dress scantily or listen to Thriller on repeat. You can certainly do these things, but one would hope that you would do them with an appreciation of the delight of Halloween. Decapitation, gore, murder, blood, monsters, the undead, Satan… These are the tenants of Halloween. The fright surrounding the night is what differentiates Halloween from just another St. Patty’s Day; I implore you to delve into the nether regions of your unholy soul when downing cheap beer and dancing like an idiot this weekend.

There is no better place to surround yourself with the Halloween spirit than at First Avenue this Saturday: Though this event is after the 31st, nothing says Halloween quite like GWAR. There’s a moment in the midst of any GWAR concert, where, soaked in blood from the eviscerated body of a pop-cultural icon and bruised from the fists flailed your direction in the mosh pit, you realize that this is perhaps the pinnacle of concert euphoria. Sure, you had a great time seeing Deerhoof or whatever, and Conor Oberst is a great songwriter akin to a modern-day blahbedy blah, but this is fucking GWAR. GWAR is more than a concert, it is an visceral musical experience. GWAR is heavy metal at its most balls-out (literally; you should see lead member Oderus Urungus swinging his obscenely monstrous genitalia with wild abandon) ridiculous, as monsters take stage and kill all the humans in sight while rocking out painfully hardcore. With smatterings of theater and performance art, and splatterings of brains and internal organs, GWAR turns First Avenue into hell on Earth, and brings the audience kicking and screaming along for the ride. There is no better way to celebrate Halloween, hands down. Wear clothes you don’t mind getting covered in a wide range of fluids and come see the mayhem.

GWAR with Kingdom of Sorrow and Toxic Holocaust
Saturday, November 1st
First Avenue Mainroom
701 1st Ave N
$18/$21, AA, 5 PM

In the spirit of pretending to be someone else, there’s a couple of cover band events going on on Halloween night: Lee’s Liquor Lounge has got E.L.nO. covering ELO (how appropriate) and Little Man covering T-Rex, and the Triple Rock features Shit Sandwich as Spinal Tap, If You Want Blood as AC/DC, We Who Cannot Be Named as The Dwarves, Sirens of Titan as Soundgarden, We Aren’t The League as the Anti-Nowhere League, and Power of 2 as the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s.

Lee’s Liquor Lounge: Cover Band Night
Friday, October 31
101 Glenwood Ave
21+, 9:30 p.m., $10

Triple Rock Social Club: Halloween Celebration
Friday, October 31
629 Cedar Ave
21+, 8 PM, $8, $6 with costume

Certain bands seem specifically tailored to Halloween. Gothic trans-core glam-rock (music writing is a great opportunity to stretch my bullshit-terminology muscle) outfit All The Pretty Horses, back together and in great form, are one of these. The Horses, a Minnesota act you ought to see before you die, share the stage with other well-cast bands, the blistering and loud twosome Gay Witch Abortion and gothic shoegazers The Funeral and The Twilight. Goth stylings and loud music feel oh so right on All Hallow’s Eve, so come blow your ears out to some fantastic local rock at the 331 Club on Friday.

All The Pretty Horses with Gay Witch Abortion and The Funeral And The Twilight
Friday, October 31
331 Club, 331 13th Ave NE
21+, Free, 9 PM

Local rap outfit Hecatomb return again for the second annual installment of the Hecatomb Halloween Howl at O’Gara’s Bar and Grill in St. Paul. With performances by Carnage, Desdamona, Concentrate, Capaciti, Mac S.P.I.L.L.Z, Ruthless, Ill E. Gal, Kymara and Zone Cashus, this is sure to be a hard-hitting Halloween event. Carnage promises “twice the exxxperience” from last year (and he looks daaaamn scary as a zombie, yikes). As everything ought to be on this hallowed of nights, this is a costume party. Come outdo the other heads in town with yours.

Hecatomb’s Halloween Howl 2
Friday, October 31
O’Gara’s Bar and Grill
164 Snelling Ave N, St. Paul
21+, $6, 9PM

Happy Halloween, be safe, eat too much candy, and watch for razorblades in apples. They’re sneaky like that.