REVIEW: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard w/ Geese | 8.31.24 @ Ascend Amphitheater [PHOTOS]

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
w/ Geese
Ascend Amphitheater; Nashville, TN
August 31, 2024

Photos by Abigail Cook

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost exactly seven years since Australian psych rock outfit King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard last played Nashville proper, both because they have played more recently nearby (like at at Bonnaroo a couple years ago, and several nights at The Caverns last year) and also because they’ve stayed so present in our minds with their unbelievably prolific barrage of recorded output (they’ve dropped a stunning 15 full-length albums since that last late 2017 outing, and have continued to defy any genre expectation by exploring realms of psych rock to metal to blues to electropop and everything in between). Though sonically not a jam band, a King Gizzard show absolutely serves up a similar energy, with drastically different set lists each night from their vast catalogue, a legion of diehard fans who dress up in theme and follow them from show to show, and a loose, unpredictable spirit, making each performance a unique one, and giving their songs a different vibe and energy from night to night. Their long-awaited recent return to Nashville, at Ascend Amphitheater with Geese, boosted a hit-filled setlist great for causal listeners and diehard fans, and made for one of the best King Gizzard shows we’ve ever witnessed!

Opening the show, young New York post-punks Geese blew us away over the summer at Bonnaroo, and, across just two albums and an EP since first finding national recognition a few years ago, haven proven to be extremely veritable and adept at genre-experimentation in their own right. Time will tell if they lean into it quite as hard as King Gizz, but for this show they largely eschewed the moody, Television-esque post-punk of their debut album in favor of cuts from last year’s country, blues, jazz, prog, and psych-rock departure, 3D Country and companion EP 4D Country. At Bonnaroo, their stage presence was practically punk rock, giving the songs more edge and unpredictability than you’d expect from the recordings. At Ascend, their vibe was a bit more laid back and closer to the tone of the album, which, while not without their more energetic or jam-y moments, was cool to see the songs played in a more familiar way. Geese are a phenomenal live force and they’re making some of the most interesting music of any young rock band right now, and they were the perfect opener to set the tone for the evening.

After that brisk opening performance, the sold out crowd was packed in, the sun had set, and the excitement for King Gizzard was palpable. Their one and only album this year (at least so far) is called Flight b741, and looking around the audience, we noticed some airplane jumpsuits to tie in with that LP’s aviation theme, as well as lizard costumes, cloaks, and all manner of fits as a nod to their vast discography and lore. Finally taking the stage, the Aussie rockers launched into a frenetic rendition of “Evil Death Roll,” from from breakout and perhaps best-known album, 2016’s Nonagon Infinity, setting the tone for a night which, though certainly delivered plenty of surprises and fan-service, wouldn’t delve too far into the obscure depths of their vast catalogue save for a couple songs. One constant of this tour seems to be the inclusion of a lot of material from their latest LP- no surprise there- and three tunes from album would follow, really leaning heavily into the blues element of that record with harmonica, thick riffs, and plenty of room to jam. Hearing the gloriously retro rock of songs like “Raw Feel,” it’s easy to forget just how easily this band can slip into metal, synth pop, and indie psychedelia on a dime, but it wouldn’t be long until we were reminded of just that.

“Time for something a bit weird,” singer Stu Mackenzie proclaimed, as they flipped to garage rock and debuted “Black Tooth,” from 2011 EP Willoughby’s Beach, for the first time live, definitely a treat for those in search of a couple deeper cuts. Instead of jumping around sonically and taking on a looser, spur-of-the-moment, as they sometimes too, this set felt a little more segmented, with a songs flowing in blocks from the same or similar albums, almost dividing the show into acts as the multifaceted rockers morphed genres. After a another fan-favorite, signature psych pop tune “Work This Time,” and one last tune from Flight b741, the groovy “Le Risque,” which they dedicated to Johnny Cash, they moved on to a bunch of songs from 2014’s I’m in Your Mind Fuzz, a record which, if there is such a thing, perhaps embodies the most “typical” King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard sound, hypnotizing us with the frenetic, poppy psychedelia of “I’m Not in Your Mind” and spaced-out and heady “Slow Jam 1,” among other great songs. The psych rock seems to be where the band likes to jam the most, and this portion of the show really showcased their impressive technical chops and how effortlessly they play off of each other as a unit, bringing new dimension to familiar material and really leaving the audience hanging onto every note.

Visually, the show was gloriously trippy and top tier, boasting dynamic, psyched-out lighting and production, leaving the band awash in color to suit the mood of each diverse song. As mentioned, the crowd seemed full of mostly diehard fans, thrilled to see the rockers back in Nashville after so long, and singing enthusiastically and getting rowdy throughout (we found it amusing that despite large “no moshing” signs posted around, there was a lot more moshing and crowd surfing than most Ascend shows). As expected, the band put on an excellent show, though we did feel like they were playing it a little safe and focusing more on the musicality than the showmanship, perhaps to really make it top-notch for a Nashville crowd (they’ve been known to get into the audience, crowd surf, and venture out to the soundboard, but stayed comparatively still for this one, choosing to rip it up from the stage).

After that initial stretch of mostly blues rock and psychedelia, things got decisively heavier in the back half of the show, with a run of songs from 2023 prog and trash metal effort PetroDragonic Apocalypse, including one of their most popular singles ever, shred-tastic head banger “Gila Monster,” which absolutely had the crowd going wild. If you just blindly played this setlist for someone unfamiliar with King Gizz, I’m not sure they’d guess it was the same band, and though the psych rock still sort of seems like their baseline, when they choose to go metal, as they have for a few albums, they absolutely rip, boasting huge riffs, guttural vocals, and bombastic energy. Though rumors of some kind of special guest a la Billy Strings had swirled (seeing him jam with King Gizz would, be mind-blowing), the one we ended up getting was definitely a surprise- drummer Jay Weinberg, formerly of Slipknot and now Suicidal Tendencies, who joined for a gloriously heavy “Perihelion,” from 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest, bringing to a close the metal segment of the show (not that we would trade all of their other great sonic experimentation, but we definitely have a particular soft spot for how hard this band rips when they veer into metal, and would kill to see a show of only that sometime).

The band’s last album, last year’s The Silver Cord, marks one of their most sonically-distinct yet (and that’s saying something 25 albums in), showcasing a thick, synth-soked electropop. To close out the show, they played two cuts from that LP, “Chang’e” (apparently for the first time live) and “Extinction,” with the group gathering around a table loaded up with stacks of synthesizers and electronic controllers and vocoder mics, delivering an extended, EDM kind of jam that weaved in and out of those songs to much of what appeared to be improv, turning the whole show- which had been a rock jam, a psych vibe, a metal mosh- into an electronic danced party, punctuating why, without a doubt, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are one of the most unique, expansive, and sonically adventurous bands of their generation. There’s nothing else quite like a King Gizz show, and no two King Gizz shows quite alike, and this one felt like something particularly special. Whether they’re back soon (we hope) or it takes another several years, we absolutely can’t wait to hear what new music they surprise us with in the meantime.

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All photos by Abigail Cook

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Setlist:

Evil Death Roll
Field of Vision
Mirage City
Raw Feel
Black Tooth
Work This Time
Le Risque
I’m in Your Mind
I’m Not in Your Mind
Hot Wax
I’m in Your Mind Fuzz
Slow Jam 1
Motor Spirit
Gila Monster
Supercell
Perihelion
Chang’e
Extinction