There’s weird.
And there’s weird.
And there’s one of my favorite Hunter S. Thompson quotes, “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
Weirdness is something many of us live by.
This King Gizzard band from Australia is definitely weird.
The best kind of weird.
BUT…
King Gizzard’s acoustic set at Detroit’s picturesque Aretha Franklin Amphitheater was the weirdest show I’ve seen this band play.
If you correctly sense that the statement is not a full endorsement, I’ll note the band needs no such endorsement, and that they’ve long earned the right to be whatever kind of weird they want to be (within reason, of course) on any given night.
I’ve moved the proceeding statement up, because I’ve hesitated to make it: Though I loved the microtonal section among other songs on this night, I think the show suffered from too much on-stage banter and one too many stage exits from both Ambrose Kenny-Smith and Joey Walker.
And, actually, first and foremost, while the Detroit River backdrop was beautiful, I missed the work of visual artist Jason Galea.
I’ll get more in-depth on these matters, but I’m going to point out now that Walker did give an early warning at the show’s outset.
“As per usual, we don’t really know what’s going to happen,” he said. “All I know is there is going to be a lot of shit that is spoken by us, so, the joke’s on you.”
He wasn’t joking.
Someone mentioned the possibility that the band was on psychedelics during the gig. I have no idea if that was the case. Were it the case, it might explain some of the awkwardness and I’d take it all back and write legendary things about them.
But I’m operating under the assumption that they were not tripping during this show.
BTW, I know a lot of Gizz fans have raved about this show, and I’m not here to tell anyone not to love this show, if you do.
It’s just an observation that it’s the one show I’ve seen by this band that is so very different than any of the other ones I’ve seen, including the acoustic set they played at the Caverns last June. That was probably my favorite show of that tour.
Musically, I do believe it ended on a strong note, despite the seemingly constant self-inflicted distractions. The microtonal guitar picking on songs such as “Straws in the Wind,” “Nuclear Fusion,” “Billabong Valley,” “Crumbling Castle,” and “Fourth Colour,” were well chosen and played. It’s as if those songs were meant to be played on acoustic guitars.
And just as King Gizz has earned the right to go off on 26-minute forays into experimental electronic music — Stu Mackenzie verbally thanked fans during the Portland, Maine show earlier this week for allowing them to do that and not running for the exits — the band has earned some leeway.
BTW, I am a fan of their extended jamtronica sections, though a few of my Gizz friends could do without them.
The show’s opener, “Theia,” might have been the last song you might have expected them to play in this set, but I think it was quite the statement and beautifully done. I loved the drawn out “Motor Spirit” quotes by Mackenzie and “The River” jam with “Wah Wah,” quotes.
It was a brilliant move to take a song with electronic roots and turn it out acoustically.
“Theia” also included “Motor Spirit” and “The Silver Cord,” jams, according to KGLW.net.
It was a solid start to the show.
I love “Ambergris,” Walker’s soul-funk song that was the second song played. It definitely works acoustically; The band played it during last year’s Caverns acoustic show.
“This next song is about sperm,” Walker said, pausing before adding, “whales.”
It was an odd spot for this super chill song. Walker’s singing on this song reminds me of Prince. In the moment I felt it lacked a bit of energy.
I’m not sure why Walker mentioned Guy Fieri before the band launched into “Rats in the Sky,” from the band’s latest LP, Flight b741. The song, unlike a few others, has not grown on me much in the now several listens I’ve given it.
After the song, Walker noted that Galea had the night off.
“We miss Jase,” Mackenzie said.
So, I’m not the only one that missed Galea’s work.
He’s truly a master of light projection and about as integral to the band’s success as one could be despite not contributing musically.
Ambrose joked “we reckon Jason should come down and play tambourine.”
It was at this point that Walker actually hinted at the roaming Q&A session he intended to lead, Mackenzie mentioning talk show host Jerry Springer.
“But it’s going to be really earnest questions,” Walker said.
“Sad answers only,” Mackenzie said. “Sad songs only.”
They continued with three more songs off the new LP, “Sad Pilot,” “Flight b741” and “Mirage City.”
I do like “Sad Pilot” for the acoustic show, probably more than any of these songs.
“Flight b741,” is another decent choice for the acoustic show, and Kenny-Smith’s harmonica does shine a bit on it.
There were some gems in the banter. One of the best ones was mention of the Australian town Geelong, aka “Geetroit.”
“They call it Geetroit because it also had a Ford Motor fucking production Company in it, which closed the fuck down and destroyed the town,” Mackenzie said. “So we’re all brothers and sisters, OK. … Industrialized countries ruining planet earth. Amen.”
A gem, but the band could not stop chatting.
“We should probably play some music now,” Mackenzie said, at one point, a minute or so before the band finally took up their instruments to play “Mirage City.”
“You Can Be Your Silhouette,” off their 2017 collaboration with Chicago’s Mild High Club, Sketches of Brunswick East, has only been played live now three times. Its live debut was May 31, at the Brighton Dome in the U.K., the only other acoustic show the band has played this year, so far.
I’m not sure I love this version, though it did contain a quote of The Doors’ “The End.”
“The song is about being who you want to be, yeah,” Mackenzie said.
The next song, “Straws in the Wind,” (off 2020’s KG LP) is a favorite of mine and because of the microtonal guitars on it, it’s an excellent option.
I definitely think this is one where Ambrose should head out into the crowd, if he is moved to do so.
“The media
Will never quit,
Ah shit”
Michael “Cavs” Cavanagh did get to put his gong to use in this song before Ambrose took a second jaunt out into the amphitheater. He ended up with a frog mask that he first wore like a hat while the guitarists got into a nice little microtonal jam.
Most of what was left of the show, which hadn’t quite reached the halfway point, would feature microtonal guitars.
“Pleura,” off 2021’s LW LP, was next up, another song I certainly didn’t mind.
Before Gizz got into KG’s “Automation,” Walker made his first mention of former President Donald Trump.
It’s another song that maybe one might not expect to sound so good with acoustic guitars, but, it fucks.
“Everybody is going to lose their jobs to AI, it’s going to be sick,” Mackenzie sang at the end of “Automation.”
A young boy named Vincent was the latest to do the vocal intro to “Nuclear Fusion.”
There’s nothing not to love about the mix of microtonal guitars and harmonica on this version, which includes some nice piano playing.
Craig talked about how the shows have been streamed live by the band on YouTube during the break before the KG song “Honey,” was played. “O.N.E.” was teased in “Honey,” a song that benefitted from the bass that Lucas Harwood played. The band jammed it out a bit.
Before the band got into KG’s “Minimum Brain Size,” Walker first noted the song “is about loser, hypermasculine people that make me and a lot of people feel bad.”
Then, as the band started the song, he dedicated this acoustic version to Trump.
“It’s pathetic though
You’re weaker than you know
Parasitic mob
Faceless undertow ”
Walker made good on his promise for a Q&A session in the crowd, though I’m not sure there was anything of value to come out of this bit which included questioning sound engineer Sam Joseph.
“Tell me which EQ frequency do you cut out the most?” Walker asked.
“Um, 10K?” Joseph responded.
Walker did say sorry.
The band made up for it by playing “Rattlesnake” off 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana.
If Walker’s one foray off stage was one too many, Kenny-Smith’s jaunt during FMB’s “Billabong Valley,” also seemed excessive.
He first asked to jump onto one of the boats floating behind the stage.
“They told me not to swim in that water so I better not,” Ambrose said of the Detroit River.
He made the most of this departure, climbing atop a truck parked at the side of the venue while continuing to sing his lead parts on this legendary tale about Australian bushranger Daniel “Mad Dog” Morgan.
The next two songs, off 2017’s Polygondwanaland, “Crumbling Castle,” and “Fourth Colour,” were the peak of the show for me. The acoustic microtonal guitars just sound so “medieval,” a sound Mackenzie first sought during “Pleura,” which he had chimed at the time wasn’t “medieval enough.”
Kenny-Smith’s piano playing added something on “Crumbling Castle,” and the band worked up a nice jam on the back end that featured some excellent drumming by Cavanagh as well as some harmonica from Kenny-Smith.
They flowed right into “Fourth Colour,” and this version is a top version for me.
“OK, we got this,” Mackenzie said, staring down the venue’s curfew as the band played a “Slow Jam 1” intro into “Her and I (Slow Jam 2),” which hadn’t been played in 50 shows according to KGLW.net records. It included “Iron Lung,” teases and had a nice jam.
I took a friend to their first Gizz show on this night, and I had to mention it was like no other show I’d seen the band play.
So weird.
Have I overstated the weirdness?
Probably. I’ve always been a bit weird myself.
