GWAR and X-Cops Join Endless Fires Fest Lineup in Syracuse, August 15-16
Upstate New York’s underground is about to be doused in fake blood, breakdowns, and Southern-fried hip hop. Endless Fires Fest, the multi-day summer bash landing at Sharkeys Event Center in Syracuse, NY on August 15 and 16, 2026, just added a headliner that turns the whole thing into a full-blown spectacle: GWAR. And because one costumed chaos machine apparently isn’t enough, their satirical siblings in blue, X-Cops, are also joining the bill.
For anyone who has somehow missed the last four decades of interdimensional carnage, GWAR is the Scumdogs of the Universe themselves — the Richmond, Virginia-birthed shock rock institution that has been dismembering celebrities, world leaders and unlucky front-row fans on stage since the mid-1980s. Their arrival on the Endless Fires lineup instantly turns this festival into a bucket-list weekend for anyone with a taste for thrash, punk, metal, and theatrical mayhem.
X-Cops, GWAR’s long-running side project featuring a squad of corrupt, hardcore-punk-playing officers, add another layer of tongue-in-cheek insanity. If you have never seen them live, imagine a Black Flag record being interrogated under a bare lightbulb. It rules.
They join a stacked roster that already reads like a love letter to the hardcore, metal and hip hop faithful. Previously announced acts include Three 6 Mafia, Project Pat, Lil Wyte, Circle Jerks, American Nightmare, Comeback Kid, E.Town Concrete, Madball, Eighteen Visions, Deadguy, Crown Of Thornz, Wisdom In Chains, Weekend Nachos, Fury of Five, Lionheart, Bodybox, Ouija Macc, Suffocate Faster, Strength For A Reason, and a deep bench of underground favorites like Missing Link, Gridiron, Beyond Repair, Chain Gang, D Bloc, Combust, Mushmouth, Lifeless, No Leash, No Grave, and Ante Up.
“Endless Fires is both a return and a rebirth,” festival founder Keith Allen said in the announcement. “It is a celebration of the underground music scene based in upstate NY, and centered in Syracuse, in the form of a multi-day, summertime festival. Years ago, we had such a fest that was the highlight for a thriving hardcore, metal and punk rock music scene. Often imitated but never recreated, the lore and the legacy of that fest are infamous. Here we are, some decades later, rekindling the flame and bringing back that tradition. The fire has never gone out and now it’s going to burn brighter than ever before. Welcome to Endless Fires. Welcome to Endless Fires of Hell Festival!”
Details of an August 14 pre-party are still to be revealed, and organizers have hinted that more additions and updates to the lineup are on the way. Given the trajectory so far, it would be wise to stop scrolling and lock in tickets before the next drop pushes prices skyward.
Get a taste of what GWAR brings to a stage before you go:
Tickets for Endless Fires Fest are on sale now:
Syracuse, sharpen your circle pit elbows. The Scumdogs are coming.
Read this if you’ve changed so much that people keep saying, “You’re not the same anymore.”
They’re right.
You’re not.
Life has a way of changing people in ways no one else can see.
Sometimes it’s one heartbreak.
Sometimes it’s years of disappointment.
Sometimes it’s the quiet pain of giving your whole heart to people who only appreciated pieces of it.
Whatever it was…
It changed you.
Not because you wanted it to.
Because you had to survive it.
So yes…
You love differently now.
You trust more slowly.
You pay attention to consistency instead of promises.
You protect your peace instead of sacrificing it to keep everyone else comfortable.
And for the first time, you understand that boundaries aren’t walls…
They’re doors with locks.
Not everyone should have a key.
Some people will call you cold because they only knew the version of you that gave endless chances.
Others will say you’ve become distant because they benefited from a version of you that never protected herself.
Don’t let their opinions make you question your growth.
Remember this:
Healing doesn’t always make people softer.
Sometimes it makes them wiser.
It teaches them that having a good heart doesn’t mean giving unlimited access to it.
It teaches them that love without boundaries becomes self-abandonment.
And it teaches them that protecting your peace isn’t selfish…
It’s necessary.
The woman you are today isn’t less loving than the woman you were a year ago.
She’s simply learned that love should be mutual.
That respect should be consistent.
And that not everyone deserves the deepest parts of her heart simply because they asked for them.
She didn’t lose her kindness.
She just stopped giving it to people who never valued it.
She didn’t become harder to love.
She became harder to take for granted.
And that’s not something she should ever apologize for.