King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard @ 9:30 Club [DC] - 8/31/2019
King Gizzard’s Stu Mackenzie at 9:30 Club (Photo by Kyle Gustafson)
I don’t pretend to be an expert of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. Mostly because I cannot fucking keep up with this band. The Australian prog rock/thrash metal weirdos have released an unfathomable eight albums (not a typo!) since 2016. I found them after hearing “Rattlesnake”, the lead single from 2017’s Flying Microtonal Banana and deciding it was the best song I had heard in ages. One YouTube commenter described it thusly - “This is just 8 minutes of some due yelling Rattlesnake. And it fucking slaps!” Indeed.
The band is currently touring these shores behind their second album of 2019, the thrash-metal heavy Infest The Rats’ Nest. Their 22 song set at the 9:30 Club last Saturday did not include the aforementioned “Rattlesnake” (sob!) but it did include other gems like “Crumbling Castle,” “Plastic Boogie,” Cyboogie,” and “Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet.” All of these riff-heavy tunes sounded right at home with the five tracks played from Rats’ Nest, a testament to the bands overall sound and ability to transition from style to style seamlessly.
And the crowd, they were up for it. The venue was 3/4 full before the opener even went on and they gave great energy to openers Orb (riff-tastic in a Sabbath kind of way) and Stonefield (same but more Zeppelin-y). By the time Gizzard went on at 11, they crowd surfing started in earnest and didn’t stop until the end of the night. Well done, everyone.
