King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

Mind blown

Where was I? Ah, yes, regaling you with tales of Wednesday napping.¹ But what I haven’t discussed is what — or rather, who — contributed to my exhaustion, beyond the travel and altitude. Well, I’ll tell you now.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard:² an Aussie six-piece rock-oriented band first introduced to me years ago on NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast, and frequently the subject of proselytization in recent years by our own Grizzly Adams.³ It’s nearly impossible to describe this band’s music, as they’ve crossed countless genres over 11 years and 20+ releases. Like us, their fans (super random, super cool) traveled far and wide to see them, and I can see why. Suffice to say that they completely reset the live concert bar for me — easily one of the top three bands/shows I’ve seen out of hundreds over the years, and definitely someone I’ll plan to see whenever I can make an opportunity to do so.⁴

Fun to see the guitars here — there were times during the show that all of the guitarists were playing keyboards instead, and Stu Mackenzie, the guitarist on the right, also played the flute during the show. That would make him a flautist. I just wanted to say that word and so will say it again: flautist. One more time: flautist.

Gizz played three shows over two days at Red Rocks. My napping trilogy took place on the day of the first show, and the next day contained two shows and a number of restorative eyes-closed moments on my part, ultimately without loss of consh; but I was inspired by some things I saw that day.

More on this tomorrow…

1. Hen did note — and rightly so — that I glossed over the fact that my first day in Denver essentially included 3 naps, worth celebrating in and of itself (and potentially covering in a future post)!

2. What a ridiculous name for a band, right up there with the names of another few defunct bands: Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s, I Love You, But I’ve Chosen Darkness, and Large Marge and the Tell ‘Em I Sent Ya’s (I swear this was a band in the mid-aughts, but I can’t find them on Google — I believe they were based out of Philly/South Jersey, and I seem to recall that they did a show dressed as the characters from Super Mario Brothers).

3. IIRC, it was Robin Hilton, specifically, and not Bob Boilen, who featured them in 2014 or so.

4. At the other end of the spectrum, the opener, Kamikaze Palm Tree, was literally one of the worst bands I’ve ever seen (twice, no less — mercifully, the weather prevented them from opening the third show). The extent of their badness was much discussed at the concert and actually was a nice conversation starter when I met some random folks I didn’t know before.

They were so bad that I thought their performances might be some sort of high art or social experiment to see how thousands of fans of good music react in the face of something completely atonal, arhythmic, and bad: I’m not convinced that this wasn’t what was ultimately going on.