King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the name itself encapsulates the weirdness and psychedelic camaraderie that occurs whenever this group makes music together. On August 7, 2012, the Australian group released their first studio album, “12 Bar Bruise.” Nearly twelve years later, on August 9, 2024, they released their twenty-sixth studio album, “Flight b741.” They’ve since taken flight on their 2024 North American Tour, armed with an arsenal of original music.
Alongside some Silly Billys and Silly Jillys, I trekked to the second stop on their tour at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens, NY, for the first show of a two-night run. Originally scheduled for one night, high demand led to the addition of a second show. This one featured their newly introduced three-hour marathon sets—180 minutes without a dull moment.
Let me kick this review off with some appreciation for the opening act, Geese, from NYC. I checked out some of their music beforehand, and it mostly translated into an exceptional live performance. After a power-packed half-hour opening set, the crowd—filled with unique cosplay costumes, all paying homage to one of the countless KGATLW themes—began to sway with anticipation. At seven o’clock on the dot, the band stumbled out to each of their respective spots. Such a simple yet effective stage plot had Cook and Ambrose on the outermost edges with their workstations—keys, harps, vocal effects, more guitars, you name it. Working inwards, next are the two main guitarists, Stu & Joey, leading us towards the back of the stage where the absolute powerhouse of a rhythm section, Cavs and Harwood, reside. Backed by a screen projecting simple yet mind-expanding visuals of the band playing, as well as a full-blown light show, their production seems to grow at a modest pace compared to the music—a nice contrast to the emphasis often placed on production over music in live settings these days.
The marathon set kicked off with some tracks from the new record, “Field of Vision,” a true '70s rocker reminiscent of Deep Purple Mark 2. Drummer Cavs hit a “Rock N Roll” drum tease before the band launched into the last track on the new record, “Daily Blues.” This drum tease set off what was confirmed by the end of the show: that this rhythm section is at the level of a Bonham/Paul-Jones duo—locked in for every second of this marathon set.
Towards the end of “Daily Blues,” the tempo picked up, and the bass transitioned the band into a new key seamlessly. They then moved into “Cut Throat Boogie” from their debut studio record. During this tempo change, the pit began to pulsate into a spiral circle, taking in stragglers on the outskirts and growing in size like a hurricane racing up the Gulf. This tends to happen when Ambrose gets on the mic, screaming and playing the bejesus out of his harmonica. The tempo picks up to Nonagon Infinity proportions as the band blasts into a “Gamma Knife” > “People-Vultures” > “Mr. Beat” movement. That’s when the spiraling pit exploded into a million pieces. Shortly thereafter, the first of at least fifty crowd surfers made their way to the front of the stage, taken by security and then escorted to the back of GA, where soon enough, they’d be surfing the crowd back to the front yet again.
The “Mr. Beat” jam got a healthy stretch in before the tempo slowed down a bit, and the band fell forward into “Boogieman Sam” in true marathon fashion without stopping for even a beat. One of my personal favorite tracks from 2019’s Fishing for Fishies, they executed it to perfection all the way through to the epic tremolo and wah-laden guitar solo and Cook’s scrumptious keys solo, which leads to a doubletime “Boogie, Boogie, Boogie!” outro jam while Ambrose embellishes the major-sounding progression with different quotes from different eras of Gizz and the band collectively takes a deep breath. A perfectly timed “Work This Time” off of their 2014 record, Oddments, allows everyone a moment to find their minds, some quicker than others.
A “Mind Fuzz Suite” brings the tempo back up, and mind you, the energy NEVER drops—tempos fluctuate tune to tune, but the energy in the venue was on a steady trajectory for the stratosphere. A raw display of absolute '60s psychedelia in action as they run through tunes from 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz. Ambrose’s harmonica just gives it that Allman Brothers Live At Fillmore East Thom Doucette vibe, which is not seen often nowadays. In your face, IN YOUR MIND!
Stu & Joey roam around the stage playing instinctually with each other like two predators working in conjunction to hunt down prey. Two hawks high in the sky, never still, waiting to pounce. When they pounce, it sets off a chain reaction all across the surrounding area. The pounce usually comes after a hellish scream from Stu, invoking the crowd.
When they finally ended a tune and retuned their instruments after a little banter, “Light 'em up, T,” says Joey to the pit. The band launched into one of the many highlights of the night, “This Thing.” After some crowd participation with the outro lyrics, things get HEAVY as they break out some songs from their 2019 record, Infest the Rat’s Nest. Kicking it off with a very Bonham-esque drum solo from Cavs. When they come back in with “Self-Immolate,” the pit erupts, and soon enough, everyone in the crowd is doing a mindful mosh. This was definitely a holy shit moment for me—the versatility, the edge, everything about this is blowing my mind. Ambrose singing a verse as the Gila Monster and creepily scouring across the stage once again kept the energy on a meteoric rise. It was in the midst of this madness that in the pit, somehow at least thirty rows of people sat down, and two guys towards the front led them in a rowing motion, and all of a sudden, the pit was transformed into a giant Viking ship of sorts rowing through the Gizz Sea. Emphasis on how incredible this crowd is. There is a palpable relationship between the band and the crowd, such a genuine exchange. Coming from mostly seeing “jambands” where the crowd can be territorial, among other things, this was a breath of fresh air in that sense.
After another retune reprieve, Ambrose shares a positive message with the crowd urging those in need to talk to someone and dedicates the next song, “Straws in the Wind,” to his mate Harvey who recently passed away. A very beautiful homage to a fallen friend. They really are metaphorically naked on stage, what you see is who they are. The song crescendos into a tribal call out to those before us, the microtonal guitars begin to warp everything I’ve understood about music to this very point.
Maybe it’s their Aussie accents, but their between-song banter has got to rank up there with some of the funniest shit I’ve heard, second only to Les Claypool. As the banter wrapped up and Stu & Joey put on their microtonal guitars, I was thrilled to hear the next bit of the marathon would take us back to 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana album, the first KGATLW I ever heard. “Doom City” > “Nuclear Fusion” > “Rattlesnake” with a few “Sleep Drifter” teases was an absolute dream for myself. Right before “Nuclear Fusion” drops, Joey and Ambrose call up fan Gaby to hit the vocal intro, and she nails it. As expected from this crowd, a hearty “Gaby!” chant broke out, and the band proceeded to burn it down Chernobyl ‘86 style. Fan favorite “Rattlesnake” got jammed out for nearly fifteen minutes, which included several unique jams within itself, vocal and otherwise. As the marathon set approached its timely end, the band closed out one of the best shows I’ve ever witnessed as hot as they started with a killer heavy AF version of “K.G.L.W.” The band bids us farewell, and I bid the band adieu until I see them again, which hopefully becomes more than once a year.
I’ve seen hundreds of shows at this point and, having only been born in 1995, I’ve had to listen to my elders go on and on about the shows they’ve seen that they’ll never forget. From Hendrix to ABB with Duane, Phish in the '90s, and of course, Led Zeppelin, I’ve heard outrageous stories about some of those performances. I once thought they were exaggerating how magical some of those shows may have been, but after this show, I finally understand that yeah, there is a whole other level that I’ve been chasing when I go and see live music.
It could be from being brainwashed by western rhythms and the pop music of the day, but there is such a worldly blend in KGATLW's music. They transcend the confines that we created at some point to try and categorize music and make it “easier” for the common listener to find what they might like. Instead of harping on that whole complex, I’m here to say King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are here to stay and maybe even save the world from a certain spoon-fed perceptive doom. They invite you into their living room for an evening of fractalized mind-numbing, foot-stomping, primal, spontaneous composition. Every time you think they might let the foot off the gas pedal is when they go up three gears and hit ludicrous speeds approaching plaid levels. I feel lucky that time and opportunity lined up for me to see a band solidifying their place in music, an absolute powerhouse, a legend in the making.
BOTTOM LINE: Go see King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard any chance you can.