King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard saved something special for their last of three shows at Remlinger Farms in Carnation, Wash.
Despite having one show left in their tour – a marathon set at Hollywood Bowl Wednesday – this was the last show on the “residency” portion of their tour, where they played multiple nights at four locations.
This last show contained several songs that hadn’t been played this tour, including saving one of their most beloved songs to close out the show.
They opened up with “Doom City,” with its heavy, foreboding beginnings that got the crowd, in for another rainy show in the Pacific Northwest, bouncing and thrashing around. It ended up being quite the mosh affair, and this song, off 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana, was played close to the LP version in length. It was only the second time the song was played on the tour.
Then came the first “All is Known” of the tour. Off 2017’s Gumboot Soup, it hadn’t been played in 28 shows, since the band hit Copenhagen, Denmark, in March.
With “Anoxia,” the band flipped back to Flying Microtonal Banana, and all of the first three songs featured frontman Stu Mackenzie on his yellow microtonal banana guitar. Joey Walker had lead vocals on this one.
The song had last been played 52 shows previous according to the setlist database at KGLW.net. Check out the site’s full setlist notes here. The fan site and its database have been an excellent resource for reporting on their performances. I highly recommend fans make a profile at the site to track their shows on the most complete database available for King Gizzard setlists.
“Straws in the Wind,” off 2020’s K.G. LP, started out pretty slow, with microtonal musings by Mackenzie and some excellent drum work from Michael Cavanagh that carried on for a bit before the band got into the main portion of the song. It was pretty cool, and this version, the third time it was played on this tour, is worth revisiting. But they all are, for that matter.
Ambrose Kenny-Smith who carries this song with his incredible voice brings the heat again.
“Cooking something raw
Cooking something big
Pandemonium, selfish pigs
Headless chickens
Scared shitless
The media
Will never quit ”
It’s such a great song showcasing both Ambrose’s almost hip-hop vocal delivery, and the sick microtonal guitar stylings this band has embraced as part of their signature style.
Kenny-Smith once again left the stage and worked the edge of the crowd with his mic, as well. His father who was an inspiration to both Kenny-Smith and the entire band, was supposed to perform with the band at Hollywood Bowl this week, but died in April. KGLW.net just published an excellent piece on Broderick Smith. Read Dan Rzicznek’s piece on Smith here.
Kenny-Smith, who has that entertainer gene that you can’t fake, has crushed his parts this tour, no matter the song. His “Straws” performances have been indicative of the supernatural powers this band possesses.
He improvised his vocals as the song carried on, building more and more energy, with the assistance of Cavs’ drum work.
The band paused before retuning to its heavy mode, with a mean “K.G.L.W. (Outro)” off 2021’s L.W. LP. This prompted the crowd to open up a giant, muddy mosh pit at the beginning of the song. The song, which kept the yellow guitar in Mackenzie’s hands, has several sections that bring out head-banging and moshing, and this crowd definitely loved to get its head bang on.
Then came “Converge,” the song off their new LP PetroDragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation. This song has been played at every stop, including the tour opening festival set at Boston Calling on May 28.
It was the only song the band played on this night from the album that was officially released on the opening day of this run (June 16).
It’s a super heavy thrash metal song and it placed the Gibson Holy Explorer guitar into Mackenzie’s hands, while Joey Walker shifted to his Flying V.
This show had a lot of louder song choices, and “Hell” off 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest was another such decision. It was the third time they played it on the tour.
The second “Her and I (Slow Jam II)” of the tour was then pulled out, and this featured some very nice textured guitar playing from Mackenzie, Walker and Cook Craig on the Flying A guitar and a lot of great jamming from the entire band throughout on this lengthy version.
It does include “Magenta Mountain,” teases, something I didn’t personally catch but KGLW.net’s setlist wizards have concluded. I’ll note that not a single song off 2022’s Omnium Gatherum (which the band has drawn heavily from in their live performances) was played in this show. It carries on, staying in the main theme of the song, but building to a heavier riff at the end, with some outstanding harmonica play from Kenny-Smith.
It’s not a short song (off 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz) at 8:15 in the studio, but this version was double that at 17:31.
I’ve mentioned KGLW.net as a resource I relied on as an independent writer covering this tour.
I also want to give much credit to Seamus Patrick Kobayashi O’Connor, aka “Streamus” who video recorded this show in its entirety (on his Facebook group KGLW Streams) allowing me to come up with a pretty precise time length for this version of the song. He recorded the entire tour, for that matter, following in the footsteps of a long line of tapers recording and preserving live performances for the last 60 or so years. Look to his Youtube channel Altered Beast Broadcasting for uploads of his recordings. He did shoot with both his smart phone and a GoPro 11 this tour.
But back to this “Her and I” jam, an interesting thought about the improvisation on this song is that this is a generally chill song that was taken to a heavier place than its beginnings, before returning back to its serenity. This tour, Gizz fans have seen the band take loud metal songs and jam out the back end of those songs, leading to a more chill mode. These types of decisions are what make this one of the most interesting bands playing improvisational music on any music scene right now.
I love the psychedelic, harmonica-driven metal riffs the band found in this jam.
In the break after the song, Walker thanked Kamikaze Palm Tree, which opened most of the shows (except for two rained-out performances). The band, which opened to luke-warm receptions in Tennessee came on strong late in the tour and won over the Chicago crowd. Sunday’s Remlinger Farms performance was the last on the tour.
The band turned to 2016’s Nonagon Infinity for a bunch of songs it likes to play together, starting with the heavy “Evil Death Roll,” the third time they played it on this tour.
The songs starts out heavy, but they took for a ride to other places. It was about 13:20, which is a bit longer than 7:14 studio version. This version didn’t include the “Invisible Face” section, but it did include “Witchcraft” teases.
And then the band played “Invisible Face.” “Evil Death Roll,” and “Invisible Face,” appear back to back on the album.
“What it is
Impossible
Gravity
The universe
Has me
Invisible face”
“Wah Wah” also off Nonagon Infinity was next, a song that is sometimes played inside “The River,” from the 2015 Quarters! LP.
KGLW.net has the setlist down as playing “Wah Wah,” then “The River,” then returning to “Wah Wah,” before returning to “The River,” which was left unfinished.
The first round of “Wah Wah,” was pretty hot, with some harmonica play that drove things even hotter. Then as “The River” got underway, the band teased back to “Her and I (Slow Jam II).” The jam on the first trip down “The River,” gets pretty intense and it goes for a stretch, and down that stretch is where “Am I In Heaven?” gets teased in, about 10 minutes after “Wah Wah” first started. The jam intensifies and breaks away from the bluesy origins of “The River,” before slowing down in a slow-moving eddy of psychedelia, with a little harmonica echoed in for good measure.
I swear the band teases the Grateful Dead’s “Fire on the Mountain,” deep in this jam, or at least nods to some Dead-esque guitar stylings, as a friend had suggested they did during the last performance at Chicago’s The Salt Shed. The band did happen to watch Dead & Company at Wrigley Field June 10. That show did not include the favorite Dead tune.
Regardless of whether it’s a Dead tease here or not, where they end up is some incredible improvisation that keeps finding new threads and places to explore.
About 17 minutes after they first started “Wah Wah,” they return to it as Mackenzie completes the last verses.
“I’m the chieftain of your feelings
I’m the God of air you’re breathing
You can not escape my dealing
I will make you cry”
The playing flows back right into “The River,” on some psychedelic wavering guitar that just sounds like water, and then the familiar blues beginnings of the song return. From the start to the end of the first “Wah Wah” to the end of “The River,” the band played for more than 21 minutes, and they didn’t even finish “The River,” with the high-energy outro section. That’s also not including the “Invisible Face,” from which they segued into “Wah Wah.”
This was already a pretty amazing show, but the band had one more present in store, with their closer choice of “Float Along – Fill Your Lungs” off the 2013 LP of the same name.
It was the first time the song was pulled out all tour, and it couldn’t come at a better time, feeling like a bookend to the “residency” portion of the tour, at least to this observer.
While the studio version of this song is pretty chill and psychedelic, the band stretched this song from those leanings into much heavier, darker territory that built to a thrash metal jam that slowed back down to its chill beginnings.