Culture
King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard return to Cleveland for the first time since 2022
By: Emily Votaw
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CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOUB) – King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard can be any band it wants, any time it wants, anywhere it wants.
At Jacob’s Pavilion (2014 Sycamore St.) Saturday night, “the Gizz” was a saucy jazz fusion outfit, a joyfully chooglin ‘70s Southern rock group, and (last, but not least) a mercilessly charging thrash metal band blasting the kind of cartoony raw power that would have made Lemmy proud.
The show was sold out, with the crowd numbering near 5,000. This is just as impressive as it is hard won.
After all, not so long ago – in May 2016, in fact, the Gizz wasn’t selling out one of the biggest venues in the city – it was playing the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame parking lot, admission $5.50. That’s not the main venue “Gizzy” has played in Cleveland – that would be the Happy Dog Tavern, but the point remains.
Saturday night, the crowd was chanting “Gizzy! Gizzy! Gizzy!” all the way to the moment the group walked onstage.
Before the band blasted into the riff-driven psychedelia of set opener Magma, vocalist/guitarist Joey Walker responded to the crowd’s warm reception.
“Cleveland is f*cking sick,” he said, as though reaffirming to a dear friend something that is certainly true, whether the rest of the world wants to believe it.
Although the Australian sextet may make every city it stops in feel special, it seems like the Gizz may have a soft spot for Cleveland.
Saturday marked the first time Gizzy has played Cleveland since a show at the Agora Theatre in May 2022. While that’s certainly not distant history, in the context of the ever-expanding “Gizzverse,” it’s somehow enough time to release six studio albums.
The first half of Saturday’s 18-song, two hour set pulled four cuts from its most recent – Flight b741, released Aug. 9. This lent it a sort of celebratory, groove-able “we have a hell of a lot of respect for classic rock” kind of vibe, notably with the Sympathy for the Devil tease woven into early set highlight Raw Feel; plus what the group’s fan database website describes as vocalist Joey Walker’s “Jimi Hendrix style scat singing” prefacing Ice V.
This feels like the appropriate spot to address the – distressing – accusation that King Gizzard is a “jam band.” True, portions of Saturday’s audience probably would have felt pretty comfortable navigating the Phish parking lot. And, let it be known, Phish’s Trey Anastasio has described King Gizzard as his “favorite band.”
Here’s my argument: King Gizz does “jam” – but this “jamming” is more about playing with distinct riffs rather than “noodling.” This is far more precise, this requires far more technical skill, and this is far more listenable.
So, there. Anyways.
Slowly but surely, Gizzy built up to the thunderous second half of Saturday’s set, with the “turning point” happening somewhere around the time the group busted out Superbug, a track from its 2019 initial foray into “real” heavy metal, Infest the Rat’s Nest.
This may be, at present, one of the band’s most impressive accomplishments: over the past few years many listeners turned to King Gizzard expecting a dose of proggy, psychedelic indie rock and unexpectedly came away with the stark realization that they are, indeed, the kind of person who enjoys thrash metal.
“Genre” is just another constraint that the Melbourne rockers have thrown out the window. It’s one of the band’s many strengths – it also helps that each member is what you could safely refer to as a “musical virtuoso.”
But, as the countless legions of people whose lives forever were changed after hearing The Velvet Underground or The Stooges can attest, a band doesn’t need to “know how to play their instruments” to win your heart.
What packed the venue Saturday night, and what has won the Gizz the hearts and minds of what is almost undoubtedly the most passionate fanbase in all of contemporary modern rock, is not so much their technical abilities but rather how obvious it is that the band is having fun.
The boys approach their art so lovingly, so sincerely, that it gently reminds the listener that, despite how it may feel, there are no “music police” scrutinizing your personal relationship with music. It’s about actively listening, following the movement of the music and how that music makes you feel; it’s about identifying the peculiarities that you, personally, react to.
It’s the joy of remembering that the only thing standing in between you and developing an appreciation for any kind of music – whether it’s Megadeth, Throbbing Gristle, Charli XCX or maybe even Phish – is you.