Live Review: The Drones, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

What are local authorities putting in the Victorian water? If The Drones latest daunting tower of misanthropic glory I See Seaweed wasn't impressive enough, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have come crawling up from the fetid cracks of some Deniliquin back alley. These seven toxic-looking longhairs, who have probably done well to get past airport security, levelled onlookers at the Astor with an experimental form of spacey rock'n'roll. Which songs did they play? Songs? Perhaps you're thinking of another band. Suffice to say they largely eschewed their current Eyes Like The Sky album in favour of volt-saturated jams such as Sea Of Trees and Uh Oh, I Called Mum. Concise as they may be on record, in the flesh these pieces morphed into open-minded meditations of pulsating ultra-sprawl, guided by some steadfast drumming and stoked with a boiler full of surf guitar riffs. The time seems right for King Gizzard. Now that the Flaming Lips have turned cold and malevolent on us, we need someone to remind us that the furthermost recesses of space (and perhaps Deniliquin) can be a happy, fun place.

Without wishing to denigrate the contributions of his sidemen, such as the menacing guitar chops of Dan Luscombe or the surly presence of barefoot bassist Fiona Kitschin, the focus tonight inevitably kept returning to The Drones' creative fulcrum Gareth Liddiard, a writhing tangle of sinewy limbs as he trashed his guitar to within an inch of its life. Magnetic, deranged, vein popping; just watching him makes you feel like you need to towel yourself down, although his repartee lightened the mood whenever technology problems arose onstage. “It was always better in the old days,” he grumbled. “We smoked pipes, wore slippers, talked about astronomy and made love slowly.” Banter aside, The Drones then tore through savage takes on Minotaur, A Moat You Can Stand In and a triumphant Shark Fin Blues before closing with what seems destined to become their most loved song, Why Write a Letter That You'll Never Send. It's something of an emotional bulldozer, a pitiful story of resignation played out under crimson spotlights to send us home, with Liddiard's Charles Manson eyes still piercing through our minds.