King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Cast Smoldering Spell On Forest Hills Stadium [Photos/Audio] (2024)

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizardon Friday fulfilled a New York City promise three years in the making with their debut performance at Forest Hills Stadium. Well, sort of…

A lot has changed in the Gizzverse since the band last stopped in the Big Apple for a show at SummerStage in Central Park on August 28th, 2019, a few days after the release of their 15th album, the thrash metal-inspired Infest the Rats’ Nest. That album, the second of 2019 following the blues-inflectedFishing for Fishies, had marked a notable stylistic shift for the Stu Mackenzie-fronted band.

When King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announced their next New York show, a Kings Theater play in April 2020, fans likely expected to see therevisiting-teenage-Rammstein-fandom version of the band. That show, along with the rest of the band’s world tour, was punted and later canceled as the pandemic took hold. In the interim, drummerEric Moore stepped out of the band lineup and into the back office as the group’s manager and head of their Flightless Recordslabel. By the time a revised 2022 tour materialized, the New York stop had ballooned to stadium size, with British experimental rockers Black Midiand tour regular Leah Seniortapped to open.

Size and scale were not the only factors at play, either. The famously prolific outfit never stands still for long, and the version that stepped on stage in Queens on Friday had already (re-)reinvented itself several times over three ensuing years and seven (yes, seven) new albums—and that doesn’t even count an eighth, Changes, due out next week.

As Stu said of the change of pace on Rats’ Nest when the 2019 album was released, “I think what is important to me is that we keep ourselves interested, so this band is a highly selfish endeavor in that respect. … I think I just wanna make music all the time.”

When it came time to introduce the latest season of Giz—a five-album year marked by longer, looser, more experimental songwriting—the temperature had decidedly changed: “I think we’re entering into our ‘jammy period,” Mackenzie said when April’s Omnium Gatherum was released. “It feels good.” Those feelings about this latest phase were on full display at Forest Hills Stadium: Of the eleven songs played during the band’s 90-minute set, nine did not yet exist when that first 2020 Kings Theater show was announced.

That’s not to say that fans of King Gizzard’s heavier side didn’t have plenty to love on Friday. Rather than shedding one skin in favor of another, this band—comprised of Mackenzie (vocals, guitars, more),Ambrose Kenny-Smith (vocals, harmonica, keys, more), Joey Walker (vocals, guitars, bass, more), Cook Craig (guitars, bass, piano, percussion, more), Lucas Harwood (bass, keys, percussion, vocals, more),and Michael Cavanagh (drums, percussion, vocals)—rides the remnants of each chapter into the next. This “jammy period,” in particular, is less of a new direction and more of a permission slip to lean into the momentum, and the manicured madness of the three 2022 tracks that opened the show—Omnium Gatherum‘s at once melodic and maddening “The Dripping Tap” and Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava‘s outlandish “Magma” and “Lava”—set a heavy, smoldering tone.

Throughout the show, the band carried out its irreverent experimentation with swashbuckling certainty. Omnium Gatherum‘s dreamy “The Garden Goblin” sparked amusing banter between the group’s members. “Sleep Drifter”, the oldest song of the night, was first served up as a tease within 2020 K.G. track “Honey”, and subsumed some notes of “Billabong Valley” itself before dripping into “O.N.E.”, which in turn borrowed a few notes from “Straws In The Wind”. The ensuing “Gaia” called Stu and Lucas to the aid of an explosive Cavanaugh drum solo. All the while, their voices sat comfortably back in the mix under curtains of distortion, giving the illusion that their soundbite-ready “woos” were calling out from the depths of the directed disarray.

“Hell”, the guttural blast that gaveInfest the Rats’nest its title, served as both a nod to the circa-2019 sound and an homage to New York’s most prominent rodent population. But even that direct line to the self-proclaimed “thrash-metal” Gizz sound would be out-Gizzed by the curated chaos of the “Magenta Mountain” and the set-closing “Iron Lung” that followed.

The final song, in particular, came off like a mission statement from a band that’s aware of its breakneck pace, an evolution cycle that can easily intimidate any new fan daring to test the waters. Pulled from the October 2022 crop of new material, the song powers through Latin sounds and dissonant tension on the way to a cackling, thrashing rock howl—a bit of old flame, a bit of exploratory spark, a fresh flavor to try that’s still 100% Gizzard.

There’s a moral to this story. Don’t put off your journey down the King Gizzard rabbit hole due to its daunting depth. Don’t worry too much about what phase they might be in. Don’t get caught up in what’s “new” and what’s “old” (or, more accurately, what’s “new” and what’s “newer”). Just get in, grab a seat, and count on this “selfish” band to continue to reinvent itself in ever more intriguing ways.

Below, check out a gallery of photos from the show via Andrew Blackstein and listen to a full audience audio recording of King Gizzard, Black Midi, and Laura Senior’s Forest Hills Stadium sets via BOOTsy Jacobs. For a full list of upcoming King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard tour dates, head here.

nugs.net is due to premiere full video and audio recordings of all three of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s Red Rocks shows (October 14th, 15th, and Nov 6th) once the audio is mixed. For details, head here.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Black Midi, Leah Senior – Full Sets – Forest Hills Stadium – 10/21/22

Setlist: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard | Forest Hills Stadium | Forest Hills, NY | 10/21/22

Set: The Dripping Tap > Magma, Lava, The Garden Goblin, Honey* > Sleep Drifter^ > O.N.E.#, Gaia$, Hell, Magenta Mountain, Iron Lung%

*with Sleep Drifter, Rattlesnake teases
^with Billabong Valley tease
#with Straws in the Wind tease
$with extended drum solo accompanied by Stu and Lucas, People Vultures tease
%with Hypertension teases