There are a few things you can be sure of at a King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard show: long merch lines, no cover songs, and absolutely no repeat songs from the night before. Like a few other bands that roast on spontaneity and show uniqueness and the feeding off a crowd’s energy, one can easily justify going on tour with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. The adventurous Aussie sextet proved it’s a fantastic time to be a Gizzhead at Tempe’s Marquee Theatre on April 19th.
In the midst of an eight-day stretch that would see King Gizzard playing both weekends of Coachella and the release of their first double album Omnium Gatherum (on 4/22), it was another eventful week for planet Earth’s most prolific band. With 20 studio albums in 10 years and radical continual experimentation in rock genres, it might be fair to call King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard rock’s most bounteous fearless freaks alongside The Flaming Lips. Remarkably, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have only had one band member change (the departure of drummer Eric Moore in 2000) through all their creative mayhem, proving a continuity and loyalty often unheard of in rock.
This”Spring Tempe 22″ show kicked off a bit late in the evening related to the venue’s slow entry policy, but the band hit the stage to the roars of “Stuuu” as their devoted fan base appeared to revel in the stage taking of band leader Stu MacKenzie. However, the first vocals of the night came from the raspy high pitched soul of keyboardist/future harmonica legend Ambrose Kenny-Smith as he sang the intro to the first single off Omnium Gatherum – “The Dripping Tap.”
The dripping tap won’t be turned off by the/Suits in charge of the world and our/Future’s hanging on by a thread/With our heads in the sand
This is perhaps the band’s most accomplished and fully realized song yet and this one gels with the theme of mind control from the controlling sect. Kicking in at 18 minutes plus the song jams into psych-rock belligerence as it hops back into the thematic refrains sung by “Amby.”
While the band has hordes of material to choose from, Stu & company marched into “The Garden Goblin” off the new double LP, which gave Joey Walker (guitar) a chance to bring some playful energy in the form of three minutes. Yet then McKenzie got his turn on vocals with their most Arcade Fire sounding song -“Magenta Mountain.” This accessible song off Omnium Gatherum features a scorching guitar solo that taught the young ones in the audience a thing about six-string pyrotechnics. And while no genre is off-limits for King Gizzard, “Planet B” followed a thrash metal winner displaying drummer Michael Cavanagh’s versatility and ability to thunder with the best.
McKenzie later took his guitar brilliancy into the form of microtonal on “Static Electricity” off 2021’s L.W., where the band’s affinity for Turkish influenced microtonal sounds with custom microtonal guitars modified to play in 24-TET tuning. And while that might sound too technically odd to even absorb, let’s just say if you dig free-form world music and African jazz (mainly Ethiopian), this eclectic flair will settle gleefully in your ears. The arid desert climates of Arizona must have felt like a homecoming of sorts for King Gizzard when they launched into the similar turned “East West Link,” then hopped seamlessly into “Honey” off K.G.- an acoustic microtonal stunner featuring killer harmonica from Amby.
Yes, the microtonal sound was the thematic sound at The Marquee and the setlist choice would prove a worthy audio carpet ride of worldly musical hijinks. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard might very well be one of rock’s five greatest live band’s going today, proving you don’t need arenas to concoct an epic rock show.
