King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard just might be the hottest rock band on the road this summer and their anarchic set at Boston’s Royale Night Club on June 14th was the proof in the LSD-laced pudding. The Seven Man Psych Rock Act from the Great Down Under released five entirely different albums last year and the hype behind those rapid-fire releases helped them sell the venue out months in advance for the second year in a row.
Their ninety-minute set was essentially broken into thirds, with each segment representing material off different albums. The first and last third of the show was made up of material touching on four of last years five albums and the middle chunk of the show dove into material off of 2016’s Nonagon Infinity. Sketches of Brunswick East was the odd man out of their releases last year as it showcased the freak-out garage act dipping their toes into the world of jazz, so it was no surprise it was the only album whose material wasn’t touched during their Boston performance.
Something that makes their discography both exciting and unique is they take a very different approach to writing albums. Rather than make a collection of unique songs, King Gizzard’s studio albums all stick to a pretty well-defined formula and the songs flow together, start to finish, while consistently interjecting reoccurring musical motifs, like you’d hear in a musical, that tie the album together. Because material from each album flow together so fluidly, it makes a handful of specific tracks come off as one long song in the live setting. This fluidity was most transparent during the tunes off of Nonagon Infinity, starting with “Robot Stop.” The strength of the thematic fluidity on that album is arguably stronger than any of their other releases, and that’s by design. In case the word “infinity” doesn’t speak for itself, the album literally loops endlessly, end into beginning, when iTunes is set to repeat the album being played.
Bands like Arcade Fire going all the way back to the E Street Band have demonstrated that when you’ve got a lot of bodies on stage, it can make for a high octane performance. Unlike those acts, King Gizzard doesn’t have musicians standing around banging on a single tom to contribute. Their duel drummers face each other instead of the audience as Ambrose Kenny Smith alternates between harmonica and backup vocals while holding down the only keyboard on the stage. All in all, you’ve got three guitarists and vocalists but none more important than frontman Stu Mackenzie. Mackenzie is the hyper-charismatic performer every band dreams of, somehow coming off as equal parts transparent and enigmatic, all while serving as the fuel that powers the acts engine.
For as animated as Mackenzie is on stage, launching himself forward and flipping his torso sideways, he manages to stay locked into the groove. At one point, he spits his gum several feet into the air and caught it in his mouth without missing a beat. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is the best modern example of an act with a multilayered sound but as important as that group dynamic is on wax, it’s hard not to keep your eyes locked on Stu during a performance.
As animated as Stu may have been, his audience was more than able to keep up. Dozens of ticket holders were crowd surfing and stage diving nonstop while the mosh pit around them continued to swirl. But this wasn’t your “Angry White Boy’s stomping in a circle throwing elbows at the air” kind of mosh pit. This pit was straight out of the music video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Thousands of amped-up fans gave in to the power of the moment and surrendered their bodies to the collective as if the insectoid aliens from Ender’s Game had grown up listening to Pearl Jam.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard switch their set up each night, so you never know which album motifs will be represented, but it’s a safe bet that on their current tour, the vast majority of what you hear will be from last years five album run. Not only were these albums seemingly produced by a dare (an album made with microtonal instruments, another a spoken word fantasy and then a soft jazz LP) but the band brings them into the live setting in a way that makes them blend together nicely. They’re a band that takes lots of risks in the studio and on stage and it’s what makes them so exciting. Although they occasionally swing and miss, the promise of a new adventure is so much more interesting than a new Foo Fighters record that you know for sure won’t sound any different than what they put out in 1997. These young guys from Australia are gambling with their success but act like they’re playing with house money and that’s what makes them so much fun. They came through Boston putting on a set for rabid fans unlike anything their contemporaries are close to replicating but unlike the vast majority of modern genre-bending icons like Tool, Rage Against The Machine or The White Stripes, the guys in King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re having fun, which makes it so much easier to leave reality at the door and dive head first into their Yellow Submarine-on-a-meth-binge journey.
It’s likely that this is a show everyone in attendance is going to cite as one of the best shows they saw in 2018. With that said, if they keep playing like they have with house money, this is a show folks in attendance are going to be bragging about having seen in such an intimate venue. Greatness awaits King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
