King Gizzard in its first full-length show of its 2023 U.S. Residency Tour wasted no time getting to business turning up the volume underground Thursday night in The Caverns’ underground amphitheater; It opened the tour with a festival set Sunday in Boston.
The band opened the first of two shows underneath the surface of the Earth with a banger; King Gizz will also play two at the property’s above-ground amphitheater Saturday and Sunday.
The band opened with “The Dripping Tap” for the second show in a row, one of three repeats from Boston. The alliteration of water dripping from the cave’s ceiling could not be resisted. The song, recorded in the studio at about 18 minutes long, also opens last year’s incredible double LP Omnium Gatherum.
“That drip, drip on the floor”
The band’s artist, Jason Galea, who also produced artwork for the run’s show prints, used his high-powered projector to paint images on the walls and ceiling of the cave, while the band took this song into jam territory. Normally the projector paints on a large screen behind the band but here the craggy cave itself was the canvas.
This show print has a different color variant for each night of the run. There are also a limited number of foils for each color variant.
Lucas Harwood did some down and dirty work on the bass as the band grooved on some funky blues deep into this song.
“Robot Stop” in the two-spot rolled into “Hot Water,” back into “Robot Stop.” This little sandwich set up an even bigger call back, as the band late in the set returned to “Hot Water” from 2014’s I’m in Your Mind Fuzz. “Hot Water” had some improvisation going on, and the band quoted “Robot Stop.”
“My body’s overworked”
It also set off a series of segues into songs that pleased the crowd of about 1,200 at the destination underground music venue.
Here’s KGLW.net’s setlist, which is under review by the site’s setlist wizards. For the site’s full show notes, go to this link.
There was a well-selected and played stretch of songs that rolled out from “Robot Stop,” off the band’s 2016 LP Nonagon Infinity. That first spin with “Hot Water” was left unfinished for, as it turned out, good reason.
The band then went deep into the Nonagon Infinity well, selecting “Big Fig Wasp,” “Gamma Knife,” which included Joey Walker using deep low vocal effects and gong play by percussionist Michael Cavanagh, a deep “People-Vultures” that had Mackenzie’s vocals echoing off the walls of the cave and “Mr. Beat,” (Jam in the Stream’s favorite off the LP), before rolling into “Iron Lung,” somewhat of a ballad from another of 2022’s five-album output, Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava. “Iron Lung” was a repeat from Sunday’s Boston Calling festival set.
It’s always soulful, but it seems the later in the set it appears, the more it can get with frontman Stu Mackenzie delivering its lines most honestly in the aftermath of a stretch of loud, energy-combusting songs. That seemed to be the case here. In Boston, the band played the song in the three spot, and it didn’t seem to carry the same amount of weight as it did here or at several shows during the March tour of Europe and the U.K, – at least through the lens of this observer who watched the opener from Couch Tour.
“Iron Lung” also benefits from the high vocal range of Ambrose Kenny-Smith, who spent some time on his sax on this song as Mackenzie and Walker worked the jammy back end of the song on their axes. Mackenzie played here, and much of the night, with his electric blue Yamaha SG-2A, which he wailed on like a siren, Harwood penetrated the walls of the cave with his bass line.
Amby, as he is called, pranced around the stage with animation as he delivered his lines. His contributions for the night included, as they usually do as of late, harmonica play, alto saxophone play, keyboard work, hand percussion duties and lots of singing sprinkled throughout. His father, Broderick Smith, died April 30. He was, besides being an inspiration to his son and the band, a British-born Australian multi-instrumentalist (sound familiar?), singer-songwriter-entertainer.
Then came that “Hypertension,” half of last year’s Laminated Denim album. This one also gets soulful in vocal delivery. This version included “Hot Water” teases.
“Who am I if not the canary in the coalmine?”
Then they returned with an intense “Hot Water” to finish the song and rile the crowd, as they did repeatedly in this show.
Stu’s flute came out, piping hot, and “Hypertension,” was teased again.
Then it was a trio of songs from 2017’s Polygondwanaland, with “Inner Cell,” “Loyalty,” and “Horology.”
The band then debuted “Supercell,” from their forthcoming LP, PetroDragonic Apocalypse or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annhilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation. The song carries the heavy metal theme the band has more than hinted at farther. The album is due June 16, when the band will be in the midst of a three-night run at Washington’s Remlinger Farms near Seattle.
“Mars for the Rich,” off 2019’s Infest the Rats’ Nest was loved by the crowd, as was “Hell,” also off Infest.
Lastly, the band banged out “Gila Monster,” for the second consecutive show. The loud tune and its “Gila” chants have a metal “Monster Mash” vibe, and that’s just how the band wanted to end this wild show down in a dripping cave.
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