Live Review: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, The Babe Rainbow

Rainbow Bay lads The Babe Rainbow have been generating hype and positive reviews for over a year now, and it’s amazing to see how much more confident they’ve grown in that time.

The group’s ‘60s nostalgia-friendly garage jams never come across as derivative; they’re just steeped in the sonic language of classic psychedelic-rock. Set highlight and recent single, Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest, exemplifies why the band are such an exciting live prospect, part-early Pink Floyd, part-Neil Young Americana but all reimagined in a more modern, twisted way that carries itself with a good dose of weird humour.

Maintaining their status as the country’s hardest-working group, King Gizzard & the Wizard Lizard are currently touring album number five since 2012, the simply terrific I’m In Your Mind Fuzz. With such a large band line-up, it’s only natural that sounds might blur together, yet King Gizz harness this into a beautiful strength, with fuzzy, loud psychedelic sonics bleeding into one another in what could easily deteriorate into cacophony were the band not such a cohesive unit.

As the band has evolved over their relatively short life so far, it’s been fascinating to chart their changing sound, from garage-punk to Spaghetti Western homage to ‘60s pop and more. Where they’ve landed is surely the defining sound of their career though, a strange seven-headed beast that blends high energy fuzz-rockers with long psychedelic jams. The high octane set was drawn largely from the band’s latest LP, including album high points, Cellophane, the title track, and fast-paced rocker, Am I In Heaven?.

Undoubtedly the highlight though was the now iconic and stretched out to 20 minutes closing spectacle of Head On/Pill, which encapsulates almost everything great about the band. Every gig serves as a reminder of how lucky we are to have them as busy as they are.