How would King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard put together their setlist? Today on Best Kept Secret, the band only plays two songs from the previous show, and two others from the day before. Would Stu MacKenzie keep an Excel sheet in which he organizes all the songs from all those 85 albums into moods? Freaky, microtonal, hit and then shuffle with a self-developed algorithm?
King Gizzard is an exceptional band in many ways, but above all they are a well-oiled live machine. The six band members can effortlessly follow each other with all those breakneck tours. That is far from easy. They have the aesthetic of a garage rock band, but steer clear of the three-chord clichés. In the first 45 minutes of this concert it can go in all directions in long songs with tempo changes, distorted harmony vocals in inimitable harmonies, unusual time signatures, a drum solo. In the moshpit you can at most triple jump on it. Or rowing, so decide a hundred or so people who sit on the floor in front of the stage and move back and forth as if they were driving a mega galleon.
Towards the end the band comes to the point with the raging hits ‘Nuclear Fusion’ and ‘Rattlesnake’. The shock hits the Nick Cave fans who had already lined up at the front, but hey, first things first. Then the front man decides it’s time for a dive. Shirt off, shoes off, crowd surfing all the way to the lake. The last song also lasts fifteen minutes, so Stu has plenty of time to give the lake lady a kiss and return for the raging finale of ‘The Dripping Tap’, complete with dripping Stu. A glorious victory for the head and the heart.
Watch all concert recordings via YouTube
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