On Friday I saw King Gizzard and the lizard wizard, the 7-piece genre defying (but mainly psychedelic) Australian band, known for their incredible album output throughout this decade with around 15 albums released in the past 7 or 8 years. I had the luck to see them play in their sold out show at Alexandra Palace in London. The concert from this tour follows their most recent effort in August, infest the rat’s nest, their second of 2019, which shows them trying their luck (effectively) with their own brand of thrash metal. This record was a follow up to ‘fishing for fishies’, a completely different style of album released previously this year which was an effort at a psychedelic boogie album with elements of electronic music; it is also worth mentioning that both these albums had environmentally conscious themes throughout, more so ‘FFF’ than ‘ITRN’, but I digress.

This gig was their largest ever, a sold out 10,000 capacity venue, (not counting crowds from their very own Australian festival ‘Gizzfest’) so this was bound to be a massive occasion for them.

They began playing at around quarter past 9 and opened explosively with Self Immolate followed by mars for the rich, two crowd catalysts from their newest thrash album. Within one minute the crowd of ten thousand was going crazy moshing and thrashing around; however the mosh pit did not limit itself to the front of the crowd and extended itself into the middle of the audience where I was staying in order to avoid the moshing due to being slightly hungover from the night before. The atmosphere of the crowd after their first song was intense, it seemed like because of the collective bodyheat of the moshers, as well as the excitement and anticipation for them to emerge on stage, almost everyone was sweating buckets after their first song.

After their fiery crowd-pleasing introduction, they announced that they were venturing further back into their extensive catalogue and to my joy began playing the opening three tracks to their 2014 album ‘I’m In Your Mind Fuzz’, one of my favourite albums from them. These first two tracks, ‘I’m in your mind’ and ‘I’m not in your mind’ were one of the highlights of the concerts for me. The way they played these tracks so tightly together was very impressive for me considering theres 7 people that have gotta be playing in unison, give or take. Yet even more impressing about the way they played these tracks, however not limited to these tracks, was how they sounded almost exactly alike to the studio recordings on the album. They played perfectly in time and the atmosphere and mood of the crowd really boosted the whole vibe, everyone was singing along to all the lyrics and even when there were long instrumental passages in the songs the crowd would just sing the noises of the instruments in those parts, which says a lot I think about the dedication and love the fanbase of king gizzard have to know off by heart every small part of the song even during these long instrumental breaks.

They followed this by ‘The great chain of being’ one of their first attempts at stoner rock from before ITRN, from Gumboot soup, their final album of their 5 consecutive album streak from 2017. They followed this by ‘plastic boogie’, one of their most environmentally conscious songs from their FFF album from earlier this year, these were both played well but these songs I wasn’t as familiar with as others. They followed this by ‘crumbling castle’ from their most progressive album ‘polygonawanaland’ released in 2017. This was their longest song on the setlist, with them going full prog and extending the song to around 15-20 minutes long. With this song I felt it allowed them to go full jam mode and just play their own instruments how they liked rather than being restricted to shorter faster cuts like the ones from their thrash album. It was definitely cool to see them play like that and feel freer with how they wanted to play however I felt that approaching the 15-minute mark they lost some of the crowd and it felt like it was dragging slightly, however with the wide ranging audience they attracted at this show some metalheads may have just heard their newest album and expected that sort of sound, very wrong for a band like king gizzard. This is one of the most amazing things I found about the show, the wide-ranging cross section of people attending the show, but I’ll touch on that later.

Anyway, the longer cut of crumbling castle allowed breathing room and space following the crazy mosh pits crushing you up like sardines with other people, it felt like a breather that everyone needed and that could have been their intention. Following this was 2 great renditions of songs from FFF, first being ‘This thing’ which is one of my favourite tracks on the album, which overall I wasn’t as fond of in comparison to their previous albums. However, their rendition of boogieman sam, one of the main singles for FFF released in summer blew me away. This was definitely a highlight of the concert for me. This was another one of the tracks that they extended to a very lengthy version in their live setting, and it worked all the better for it. It was improvised to about 10 plus minutes in length and was another one of the tracks that sounded identical to the studio version, I found this impressive also due to the instrumentation used in this track. There are long harmonica solos in this track, obviously fitting the boogie sound of the album it’s on, these solos sounded amazing live and almost sounded in parts like the song was just being played off the sound system. I was impressed by Ambrose on the harmonica as he looked like he was giving everything to the performance literally to the last breath. The long jamming added to the track complimented it very well and the vibe of the audience was also really nicely chilled for this track especially in comparison to the energy of the crowd during the ITRN songs, it felt like we were being taken on a journey through all these different styles of music, and everyone was happy to be a part of it.

Following this was a run of songs from their nonagon infinity album, an album in which the concept is that every song runs into the next, even from the last moments in the album transitioning into the beginning of the album if you happen to have it on repeat. As you can imagine, this worked perfectly in a live setting as they had no need for breaks and transitioned seamlessly from one track into the next, incorporating elements and choruses of other songs also on the album briefly in between this run of songs, pleasing the crowd greatly. One of the only issues I had with this part of the gig is that I felt that the synthesizer was not mixed in as effectively as it could have been as I felt myself struggling to hear all the sounds coming from it, especially with the noise of the crowd mimicking along to the sounds that were coming from it.

Continuing with the energy from this run of tracks they went on to play another amazing rendition of another of their thrash tracks, this one being Venusian 2. During this song there was an enormous mosh happening right next to me, bearing in mind I’m stood in the middle of a crowd of ten thousand so I can’t imagine what was happening closer to the front, however this was no ordinary mosh. Instead of all thrashing and throwing themselves into one another, hundreds of people were running around in a large circle in something I can only describe as a human firework Catherine wheel, with people popping off and only getting larger as the chorus and song progressed, first time I’ve seen something like that.

They followed this with Planet B, this was another of their more environmental tracks off ITRN focusing on the lack of another planet to inhabit and the damage that colonization, urbanization, monetization and civilisation has done to our earth, closing with “Open your eyes and see, There is no Planet B.” I thought there may have been some significance in them playing their 2 most environmental songs at their London show, the home of the largest climate strikes and most extinction rebellion members in the UK.

Another highlight of this show was their cover of Rattlesnake, the first song from their ‘Explorations into Microtonal Tuning’ phase, their first of the 5 album streak of 2017 which used microtonal guitars using quarter tones, these are the pitches halfway between the notes on a normal scale, giving them an octave divided into 24 tones, double the amount on a normal scale. This allowed them to achieve a middle eastern or Turkish type vibe. What made this song so special was the background visuals during this song, which had been incredibly psychedelic or manic and intense depending on what style of music they were playing thus far; however, this song had its own visuals based on its music video. It played a cgi trip through a deserted wasteland with rock formations interspersed with epileptic flashes of a skull formation on a mountain with glowing green eyes. Being 8 minutes in length on the album, they also had a lot of room to play around with this one as the visuals would also change to a large rattlesnake slithering towards the audience through the dune. This was a definite crowd pleaser as this song allowed everyone to get involved even if you did not know the song as the majority of the 8 minutes is a fast repetition of the word ‘Rattlesnake’, so the crowd went crazy with this one which was awesome to see.

After almost 2 hours of runtime the concert came to a close with them announcing that the next song was their last. I remember discussing with members of the audience what they would play as their final hurrah considering their massive back catalogue of music to choose from that would also please everyone. We agreed it would either be the closer or another from their latest album, an educated guess based on the set lists of the previous nights of their tour. However they came from left field with their final track that I should think surprised everyone, they ended with ‘Float along, fill your lungs’, their psychedelic 7 minute closing track off their 2^nd album from 2013, the first and last played from this album. It was a completely different vibe to what people I imagine expected with it being a very dreamy and ethereal experience. They played this for around 10 minutes and was interestingly the most mellow and beautiful of all the songs they played throughout the night. I found this choice interesting as it is one of their lesser known projects and definitely not a fan favourite, but I suppose I should’ve counted on king gizzard subverting expectations and coming out of nowhere with something totally unexpected as that is their entire philosophy as a band. I found this final track wrapped up the night really nicely as it just showed their incredible versatility as a band playing in so many different styles so well in one night and pulling them off all so flawlessly.

Overall the amount of material covered from so many different and contrasting genres was incredible, certainly not something you’d experience in a concert from many other groups in the modern musical landscape, not just of rock but across the board. I would also extend this to the cross section of different kinds of people who were attending the show. It ranged from full on metal heads, to indie Mac Demarco kids, to children with their parents, to regular looking guys who seemed like they’d just come out of work. I think this says a lot about the undeniable talent of this group and it is what makes king gizzard so unique. It’s often a rare occasion for bands to completely change their sound up and yet king gizzard are going into the studio every time with a new direction and a new sound switching it up completely and developing their sound to something new and innovative, and the most important part is that they consistently master each attempt at every style they decide to play in and create an original album every time.