#graaaagh it was so much fun :')) i miss them so baddd

[petrodragonicapocalypse]

part 3: bristol & brighton

bristol

the overnight bus out of edinburgh left at 9pm. settling down in my seat, damp from the rain and sleep deprived from the drunk scottish people outside my window at 3am that morning, i plugged in my phone to charge and made what had become a routine check of the ticket resale sites. bennie, back home in devon, had hinted at being a bit sad that she was missing out on the bristol show the next day... but of course all the remaining tickets were way out of our budget. then, idly scrolling the king gizz subreddit, a new post popped up: 1 standing ticket for bristol, asking price, PM for details. i frantically shot the poster a message and called bennie's number.

we spent several hours checking buses and trains, searching for a last minute airbnb and begging the redditor to hold the ticket. the stress levels were not helped by opening twitter to find stu tweeting from wolverhampton (a show i was skipping) asking if anyone had any emergency stomach medication, something he's had to cancel an entire tour for before. but thankfully it seems someone pulled through for him, and by midnight we'd secured bennie a place at the bristol beacon.

the bus was loud and hot and not very comfortable. the changeover in birmingham at 6am was definitely a low point, with the 30p-per-use toilets and all the food options being on the boycott list, but ultimately it was cheap and got me into bristol at 10am on the 30th may - gig day.

for the bristol show, the last "normal" show before acoustic night, i was also being joined by one of my best friends from back home. she'd been a casual gizz listener for as long as i had, but never seen them live before. we rendezvous'd at the airbnb (after a confusing morning of chasing the unresponsive owner for the key and both getting lost several times trying to find the place), crashed out on the bed and waited for bennie's train to arrive. solo travelling had been awesome but i was really looking forward to taking a little squad of my besties to this show.

the three of us made our way over to the venue at around 4pm, picking up some much needed coffee and falafel for dinner on the way. we joined the queue, cheerfully greeted by some fans i'd met at previous shows, and excitedly briefed my friend on what to expect from a gizz concert.

the support act at bristol was - finally - grace cummings. having recovered from her illness she totally lived up to the hype, with her powerful deep voice and almost scarily intense stage presence. waiting on the barrier after her set, i caught a glimpse of the gizzard setlist for the night ahead. trying not to give too much away, i turned to the others and pointed with a grin.

soon, to scattered applause and cries of "ooooh!" the crew wheeled out the synth table once again. it was back, after apparently sustaining water damage in hamburg (didn't we all) and being put out of action for repair work. then, a full ten minutes before they were due to appear, the band themselves emerged onstage and, with a quick nod to the room, began fiddling with the synthesizers. they spoke amongst each other in hushed voices, adjusting stuff on the table out of our sight and scratching their heads, clearly too immersed to pay much heed to the crowd watching in anticipation. well - except for ambrose, who seemed to have no job to do so instead entertained us by pulling faces and doing silly walks on and off stage.

bang on 9pm (a gizzard is never late, nor is he early...) they fired the synths up and launched into the silver cord. while i'd enjoyed the experimental hamburg version, this was undeniably miles better. the vocoders were tighter, the synth melodies more controlled, and when the beat kicked in the whole room was swaying and moving to the heavy, hypnotic pulses. afterwards, a beautiful rendition of extinction, and then (the song i'd been really excited for when i'd glimpsed it earlier) - gondii. an all-time favourite of mine and bennie's, it was intense, electrifying and ecstatic. we grabbed each other's hands, bounced up and down and yelled tunelessly along to the chorus. i vaguely remember hearing someone behind me ask if anyone had poppers.

sadly the boys goofed the transition into the grim reaper and skipped it (amby rap i'll catch you next tour!!!), but they laughed it off and the rest of the show made up for it in spades. up next was an epic heavy section - supercell, organ farmer and dragon, transitioning into flamethrower just as petrodragonic apocalypse intended. i briefly worried that my chill-gizz-enjoyer friend had been thrown too hard into the gizz-metal deep end, but she survived it and moshed along admirably. then the vibes switched up once again with the wonderfully jammy ice v, hypertension and work this time, everyone dancing and swaying together, lost in the current of the music.

to end the show, the microtonal guitars came out for pleura (this time joey yelled his "free palestine!" in the break with considerably more gusto) and billabong valley. i don't know what ambrose was drinking that night but he was fired UP - hopping the barrier into the audience to sing the first verse shoulder-to-shoulder with sweaty fans in the tightly packed pit. then he climbed/fell back over the barrier - caught by gaspard - clambered back onto the stage, gasped "i might've peaked too early!" and then performed the rest of the song in a kind of frenzy; sprinting laps of the stage, whirling the microphone around above his head, playing jumprope with the cable and delivering his vocals with a growl that would make even the toughest classic rockers jealous. all told, a finale to remember.

after the show was over, the three of us wandered back to the airbnb glowing happily. bennie's accommodation had cancelled at the last minute, so we had to sneak her into our room and squeeze all three of us into the double bed, but we were so tired we just passed out and slept soundly regardless.

🦎✈️🎵

brighton

the next day (friday 31st may) was the day of our final show: brighton acoustic night. bennie and i said goodbye to our friend, picked up a quick breakfast at a greggs and headed back to the coach station. for months i'd been really, really looking forward to this show - a bootleg CD of the previous year's acoustic night in tennessee is one of my prized possessions - and due to our own experience acoustic-ifying king gizzard songs for our covers we were both very excited to see what songs the band would choose to adapt this time.

the national express NX 200 took us to gatwick airport, london, where we were scheduled to change onto the NX 025 to brighton. after some confusion, involving running around the airport following various conflicting signs and arrows with another gizzhead we'd picked up along the way, we arrived at the north terminal bus station with 5 minutes to spare. the coach was then delayed by over an hour. we watched the red numbers on the screen tick back further and further and tried not to panic.

to our great relief the coach did eventually show up. then, a quick jog dragging the suitcase through brighton, and we made it to the venue with a meagre 1.5 hours until doors opened. i bagsied a place in the quickly growing queue, got changed into my gig clothes in the street and sent bennie off with our luggage to find the hotel. luckily, the friendly mullet-and-hawaiian-shirt-adorned people next to me (they don't call brighton the gay capital of the UK for nothing) let bennie rejoin me in line when she returned. we all chatted about our favourite gizzard albums (the number 1 gizzhead icebreaker) and the songs we were hoping to get that night.

once through the ticket checks we rushed straight into the auditorium, hoping that our delayed coach hadn't lost us a chance at getting near the front. by a stroke of very good luck we managed to grab a place on the barrier right over on the left hand side - not exactly the prime position, but more than good enough for us. we clung onto it as the room filled up. grace cummings opened again (and smashed it again) and then the gizzard crew appeared once more to set up, this time with acoustic guitars, a piano and a half circle of stools. and for the final time, we joined the massive cheer as the band walked out onstage.

the acoustic night vibe was noticably different. joey, for reasons we may only guess at, was wearing a pair of dubiously fashionable sunshades. stu emerged already shoeless and carrying a pringles tube, grabbed his acoustic and sat down... on the stool right in front of me and bennie. turns out we had the best spot in the house: a direct eye-level view of stu mackenzie's bare feet. (joke) (...unless?). despite the dazzle of the stagelights and the crowd of 2000 people, the atmosphere was strangely intimate. the band sat facing us on the ring of stools, cavs and lucas chilling by the drumkit behind them and ambrose trading his usual synths for a seat behind the piano.

apparently the laid-back vibes (and possibly also the various beverages onstage) had put the guys in a much chattier mood than usual. throughout the night they exchanged jokes and banter with each other and the audience, ranging from funny to crude to heartfelt to just plain baffling, and prompting joking comments of "turn off his microphone!" and "this is why we usually play the songs without gaps in between". you can watch the whole thing here thanks to streamus, but some of my favourite moments include "grapefruit with bits", "phallic mushrooms" and "to my SISTER!!!". at one point, they even brought the world's best drummer, the elusive michael cavanagh, out from behind the kit to give a talk-show style interview while sipping on a glass of red wine. it also became apparent that stu's pringles tube did not contain crisps, and he was actually drinking something out of it... but he refused to tell us what.

the music was, of course, breathtaking. between fart jokes and anecdotes they wove for us melodies and counter-melodies at once familiar and new, the textures of the acoustic guitars building into a soundscape somehow both light, whimsical, and wonderfully complex and intricate. from reinterpreted classics such as "iron lung" to acoustic deep cuts like "time = $$$" and "you can be your silhouette" it was all utterly dreamlike and beautiful beyond even my highest expectations. truly a reminder of the incredible talent and versatility of the musicians in front of us, who just 24 hours before had been blasting our eardrums with techno and heavy metal in a city across the country. i watched it all happen from just a few feet away, gazing up at those crazy aussies like romeo under the fucking balcony, while the stagelights made spinning patterns dance across the ceiling far above.

despite it being the "chill out" show the crowd was lively and spirited, unable to resist some light moshing to trapdoor (trapdoor my beloved!!!) and even throwing up some crowd surfers for hot water. you'd've been hard pressed to find a single person in that room who wasn't having the time of their life. eventually though, i felt with a pang that the show was beginning to draw to a close. they played another one of my favourites, this thing, and then another; slow jam 1. the latter had me leaning over the barrier with tears running down my cheeks, close to overwhelmed by the culmination of the whole fantastic 2 week experience, sure that this would be the last song i'd hear from my favourite band in the world until whenever they next toured my area.

and then... something else happened.

what?

what??????

?????

we stumbled out of the venue in a daze, clutching a crumpled setlist passed to us by stu and drumsticks from the legendary mickey cavs himself. people kept appearing from the crowd to ask if we were the CD people and slapping us around the shoulders - a few even knew us by bennie's youtube name, which set us off laughing uncontrollably. for a while we just stood in the street by the venue doors letting the tide of people flow past, completely unable to believe what had just happened.

i opened my phone to a flurry of messages from my gizzhead internet friends (shoutout you guys) who'd seen the events unfold on streamus' livestream. just then, streamus himself appeared from around a corner to congratulate us. turns out he's a super chill guy, friendly and hyped about king gizz as ever. he kindly tipped us off to the spot around back of the venue where a bunch of fans were gathered by the stage door. we hung out there with the hardcore fans for a while, listening to everyone's tour stories while nonagon infinity played on a tinny speaker.

the band themselves didn't emerge that night (understandably - they had a 5am start the next day), but we made some cool friends anyway. then, as if we hadn't already had the most insane night, one of gizzard's stage hands quietly approached us from a side door and handed us a bunch of roughly folded sheets of paper. it was the band's chord sheets from the show. we sceamed internally, and probably also externally, and thanked her at least a dozen times. in return she thanked us, saying how if it wasn't for the fans none of the crew would have their jobs. we beamed and couldn't help but ask... did the band really listen to our CD? "yeah!" she said, "they were pumping it on the tour bus!". pretty fucking unreal.

eventually we returned to the hotel room and fell exhausted onto the bed. bennie's youtube was blowing up with "WAS THAT YOU?!" comments, and (half to check it actually was) we pulled up the last few minutes of streamus' video and watched it together, rolling around and squealing in semi-embarrassed glee. and did i mention that acoustic witchcraft (you know, the king gizzard version) was really good? it was really, really, really fucking good. pretty sure when the beat kicked in after the first verse i felt my soul jump out of my chest. it was so special. it was perfect.

🦎✈️🎵

epilogue

we made our way home by national express the next day. after 2 weeks my clothes were dirty, my legs covered in mosh pit bruises, my camera full of several hundred mostly blurry photos, and my heart full of joy and gratitude. which was presently very nearly crushed by arriving at our final bus stop and finding that my luggage had somehow disappeared from the storage hold during the journey. yep... setlists, drumsticks, passport and all. i did cry. but (to cut a long and convoluted story short) thanks to a stroke of very good luck and some excellent detective work from my mum, we managed to retrieve it from an apologetic elderly couple in the next town over. crisis averted, it was time to go back to normal life... for now.

the next week, king gizz announced their 2025 europe residency tour. naturally, we've got tickets to the 3-night run in bulgaria.

HAHA!

BEST BAND IN THE WORLD.

thanks for reading! the end. 🦎✈️🎵❤️

GizzMay 2024 !

(a retrospective tour diary by me)

🦎✈️🎵

king gizzard & the lizard wizard announced their 2024 world tour last november with a promise to "get woke, freak out the right wingers and love each other", so i, a like any normal person working a minimum wage job, immediately bought tickets to six shows.

read about the best 2 weeks of my life here (if you wish)

part 1: hamburg & amsterdam

after half a year of planning, studying google maps, scouring airbnb for cheap rooms and wincing at the cost of transport, me and my lovely girlfriend bennie (the person who first showed me polygondwanaland back in 2019) set off on our long-awaited trip on tuesday 21st may 2024. we were going to follow the band for six shows over two weeks across four countries. neither of us had ever done something like this before.

to kick off the trip, we flew from bristol airport to amsterdam, where we were due to transfer to a flight to hamburg. typically, a thunderstorm meant our hamburg flight was cancelled, so they sent us on a detour to vienna. we ate a slice of airport pizza in austria, tried not to panic and finally rolled into hamburg at around 10pm.

hamburg

the next day (22nd may) was our first gig. with around 4000 people and a 3 hour marathon set, this was gonna be the biggest and longest show of our section of the tour, and the only outdoor one. we queued from 1.30pm (early for europeans!) outside the venue, stadtpark arena. soon, the eerie sound of synths began emanating from inside the gates, then morphing into a soundcheck for the never-played-live-before silver cord, vocoder and all, and excitement amongst the fans was stoked. the weather forecast looked ominous, but spirits were high.

at around 3pm, it started raining. it poured relentlessly on the growing line of gizzheads in ponchos clutching poster tubes and beers for 3 hours until the venue gates finally opened. we ran to the front. we were hyped. we stood for another hour while rain and mist blew around the arena and thousands of fans filed in.

finally, just as the rain died down a bit, king gizz ran out onto the stage. the slightly delirious state induced by 2 oreos for dinner and freezing my tits off for 4 hours was almost as good as drugs. all thought of the water running down my back and legs disappeared. fuck yeah!!! king gizzard!!!

the rain soon came back in full force but we didn't care. float along fill your lungs was a fantastic opener, followed by banger after banger: a nonagon suite, work this time and iron lung (with ambrose braving the weather and emerging out onto the exposed walkway in the chorus to splash around in the puddles), to name a few. then, out rolled the highly anticipated new synth table and the boys launched into the 27 minute long live debut of the silver cord.

personally i was full of joy, whimsy and love for techno so naturally i thought this was fucking awesome, but reactions from the crowd (and from the "online community" a.k.a. redditors... haha) seem to have been mixed. it was 27 minutes long, we were cold and wet, the sound was a bit dodgy, etc etc. whatever. i was vibing extremely hard.

however, any dampened spirits were very quickly raised again by the epic 7 song metal run that ended the show. the crowd went wild - turns out moshing does wonders for the cold. i heard what ended up being 2 of my all time favourite live gizz songs for the first time: organ farmer and motor spirit. it kicked ass.

we made it back to the hotel soaking wet and probably bordering on hypothermic after over 7 hours in the rain. had a hot shower and then spent the rest of the evening attempting to dry our clothes and shoes with a hairdryer before our flight the next day. did not smell good.

🦎✈️🎵

amsterdam

we flew from hamburg to amsterdam schiphol on 23rd may, with at least 5 other gizzheads (easily recognisable by their poster tubes and t shirts) dotted around the plane. we arrived to a beautiful city on a beautiful sunny day and (obviously) headed directly to the weed shops. edibles legally purchased, we dumped our stuff at the airbnb and took the train to the venue: AFAS live.

waiting in the line, it was easy to spot who'd been at stadtpark the night before from the mud on their shoes. but the weather that afternoon was sunny and warm and the line was happily buzzing. we met some cool people including a person in a long yellow coat who was drawing huge oil pastel posters for the show - rad as hell and an iconic figure of the tour (i believe they gave the band a poster that night!).

once in the venue, we settled down by the barrier (it's always worth the wait!) and chatted with some swedish guys and a friendly australian, far from home. the support band was dr sure's unusual practice, a lively melbourne based punk act with a wild-haired wild-eyed frontman, filling in last minute for grace cummings who had to cancel several shows due to illness. they put on a great show, during which stu and lucas surreptitiously appeared to watch the band from the wings a few feet away from us. we gave them a wave, and stu shot us a wink.

the setlist that night was fucking incredible. gizzard opened with the mighty crumbling castle, a song that i'd been dreaming of seeing live ever since i first heard it 5 years ago. it was better than i ever could have hoped, with the weed brownie kicking in and the stage lights becoming kaleidoscopic. the band was energetic and the vibes were electric. stu overshot a high kick, fell on his ass and managed to hop back up without missing a lyric. self immolate - dragon - flamethrower - gila monster was unreal. joey used a quiet moment in pleura to stage-whisper "free palestine!", eliciting cheers.

somewhat hilariously in retrospect, during the hypnotic drone of rattlesnake me and my girlfriend both suddenly realised we were way too high. i have vague memories of the second half of the gig, including the han tyumi suite (REALLY REALLY MAD I MOSTLY MISSED THAT) and an honest-to-god terrifying moment in which joey and ambrose walked to the front of the stage, crouched down and stared directly at us for what felt like an undefinable amount of time. ultimately though - despite our tenuous grip on reality and the fact that we somehow got lost in a train station for an hour on the way home and spent the next full day in a semi-stoned stupor - it was a fantastic show. lesson learned: the dutch do not play about their space cakes.

after a day of recovery (let's just skip over that) and a lovely morning spent wandering around amsterdam taking in the sights, bennie and i made our way back to the airport to say our goodbyes. she was going home and i was travelling on to hit up the northern UK shows. despite knowing we'd see each other again in a week for the acoustic UK finale show in brighton, it was weirdly emotional. i was a little nervous about travelling alone, but excited.

🦎✈️🎵

(end of part 1, part 2 coming soon!)