The anomalous King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
4 stars
As the chuggy riff of ‘Self-Immolate’ broke out over Alexandra Palace last Saturday, someone threw an entire pint down me. Not the best start to one of the best gigs I’ve been to in a long time, but certainly a memorable one. This night was definitely memorable for the band playing as well: performing their biggest headline show to date, Aussie psych-rock lords, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, played to a sold-out venue despite never breaking into the top 75 in the UK – weird even for a band called King Gizz. Nonetheless, they made the most of it, next swinging from ‘Self-Immolate’ into their catchy ‘Mars for the Rich’, another song off their new album Infest the Rat’s Nest, about the impending environmental disaster we’re facing. This was really one to get the pit going. Surprisingly, they next moved onto ‘I’m in Your Mind’, ‘I’m Not in Your Mind’, and ‘Cellophane’, all songs from their older 2014 album I’m in Your Mind Fuzz. By incorporating their older songs, you got the feeling the band had this setlist planned for years, and suggested how much this sell-out show meant to them; as singer/guitarist Stu Mackenzie pointed out “it’s a bit different from the Shacklewell Arms, isn’t it?”
They followed this up with ‘The Great Chain of Being’ and ‘Plastic Boogie’, the latter off their album Fishing for Fishies, released in April this year. This song stereotypes the main sound they went for in this album, an electro-boogie vibe with singer/keyboardist Ambrose Kenny-Smith squeezing out the iconic harmonica riffs which are common for the record. Drifting back to their fourth album of 2017, Polygondwanaland, King Gizz next took us on a swooning journey through their 11-minute song ‘Crumbling Castle’, complete with heavily psychedelic images projected onto the huge screen behind them to compliment their insane noise. A few sweaty, jostling songs later and King Gizz brought out the big guns: ‘Rattlesnake’, arguably their most famous song. Its popularity in part due to the repetitively addictive riffs used, but in a bigger part its success in energising the crowd was mostly due to the ridiculously (not) difficult lyrics: “rattlesnake/rattlesnake/rattlesnake/rattlesnake”.
This led us to the final song. What would it be? We hadn’t yet had some of their classics such as ‘Gamma Knife’ or the more recent ‘Cyboogie’. The crowd got ready to pounce upon another iconic song. As the first few notes trickled out, it wasn’t one I (and everyone else) recognised: looking at the setlist afterwards it was ‘Float Along – Fill Your Lungs’ from their 2013 album of the same name. Whilst not knowing the song, it had math rock vibes mixed with Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles, so what’s not to love? As they finished up their final song and the house lights went up over the 10,000+ audience cheering along, I could see why King Gizz chose such a poignant song to finish off their biggest, and best, gig of their career so far.
