Live Review: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, ORB

The carpet inside The Triffid feels impressively clean. The venue is still young, but its tidiness is almost unnatural, really. Despite this well maintained appearance, the modified aircraft hanger is about to be transformed into a psychedelic dungeon full of sludgy riffs and disembodied voices.

Melbourne three-piece ORB are responsible for opening the portal to the underworld this evening, and are about as down-to-earth as you would expect from a band with a capitalised, monosyllabic name. The beginning of their set feels like an unfamiliar game of a sport with no discernible rules or patterns, the group cycling through musical ideas and altering time signatures seemingly at random. Meanwhile, lead singer Zak Olsen stares intensely at the neck of his guitar, wailing through a series of unintelligible lyrics. 

However, the band's closing three songs stretch out in length as the riffs tighten up and begin to approach something closer to transcendence. Olsen lifts his head up and engages the crowd as their final song Migration speeds up the chugging bass line of Tame Impala's Elephant. Audience members form a circle pit, and for a moment there is nothing to been seen but a sea of flying sweat and uncombed hair.

All seven members of Melbourne psychedelic garage-rock band King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard pile onto the stage behind large projections of evolving prisms. Their latest album, Nonagon Infinity, was an ambitious concept album, designed to seamlessly mutate from one track to the next, including the transition between the closing song and opening one.

In light of this, the bedraggled-looking band open with Robot Stop, Big Fig Wasp, Gamma Knife, People-Vultures and Mr Beat from the record. The famous flute comes out for a few minutes, before the band introduce a new song amid the chaos. Somehow, it's even more high octane than everything that's come before it. Shoes, jackets, and other miscellaneous pieces of clothing are soaring through the room in slow motion as the crowd sways and writhes beneath the ceiling.

The band take the opportunity to detour into some of their older material, playing I'm In Your Mind, Cellophane, Trapdoor and Willoughby's Beach. The latter in particular is a refreshing departure from the mantra-like repetition of most of the material tonight, and The River's groovy time signature is an additional delight. Afterwards, it's time to return to the Nonagon Infinity album for the final run of songs. Evil Death Roll, Invisible Face, Wah Wah and Road Train are jammed into a medley before we return back to Robot Stop. The night comes to an end, but it feels like it's only just beginning.