Wednesday evening boiled down to a series of layers, first manifested in the packed crowd members sitting close and cross-legged on the floor, in chairs and couches behind them, then perched on barstools. On the Bunkhouse’s raised upper level, they were seated, perched on chair-backs, standing on the floor, and finally standing atop chairs and tabletops farthest from the stage.
Vegas’ own Swingshift Sideshow performance group, Andrew S and Kelvikta the Blade, performing their nervous-giggle-inducing standards including Internal Organ Repositioning (aka “visible heart relocation”), Screw Face (aka “large coil on a drill”), Sword Swallowing, Broken Glass & Bare Skin, Eye-Socket Weight Lifting (“55 lbs.+”) and Darts of Death (aka, according to crowd chants, “Pu-ssy darts! Pu-ssy darts!”). Andrew’s infamous arms-through-the-scrotum showstopper remained absent from the setlist, but his equally squirm-tastic Deep-Body Muscular Skewering provided the comparable high point. Breathing deeply and steadily, his eyes bugged out in concentration, he twisted a giant needle through the underside of his left forearm’s dermis and muscular tissue until the tip reemerged on the top of his arm, skin stretching and gripping the invading metal like the central pole in a circus tent. Careful to avoid all regional arteries and bones, he withdrew it back through his various bodily layers, not a drop of blood spilled in the whole gruesome process.
A short break, and Finland’s Bloody Tourists threesome took the stage to ominous organ music. Resembling demented, heavily pierced Blue Men, they shed portions of their sharp black suits and continuously downed shots in a pantomimed scene loosely depicting two braggarts cajoling a hesitant underling to join their contest. From stapling playing cards to the stomach, head and tongue and sticking needles through the neck to hanging chairs and stools off the arm and ears, they upped the ante until the involuntary volunteer accepted a few tonguefuls of hot wax and held a watermelon in place with his stomach as his tormentor sliced it in half with one quick sword stroke. A sword was also prepped for an anticipated display of swallowing, only to be discarded at the last moment in favor of swallowing a long pink dildo. Not to be outdone in outrageousness, they quickly schlepped a keg near, which was hung off one Tourist’s remarkably sturdy penis. And not merely hung, but swung around a bit. By the time the three ran fire over their bodies, so many layers of social convention had been scraped away, everyone in the room was numb to the burn.