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There are exceptions to the down-to-midtempo vibes on Islands with some real banging ass-shakers like “Magic Powers” and “What are the Odds,” two of my favorite songs on the record. Also great: “Journey to Dog Star” is an exotic trance-dance and the previously released “When I’m Free” (a split single with Le Butcherettes), as I wrote in 2023 when the single was released, highlights all the best DVG have to offer: swagger, swirling keyboards and killer rhythm.

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We saw King Gizzard play a sold-out show at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee this past Saturday night. We had seriously nosebleed seats, the screen that hung over the stage that showed a psychedelic light show (I think) completely obscured by the ceiling’s overhang.

They led off with the first track from Flying Microtonal Banana, “Rattlesnake” and I’m pretty embarrassed to say that was the only song I heard in its entirety, though I’m guessing they probably played at least one or more tracks, including maybe “Sleep Drifter.” I am going to blame that song for my loss of consciousness on and off for the rest of the show. (My other excuses: I get up really early for work on Saturdays, we attended two parties that afternoon and evening at which I definitely had a few cocktails and lots of snacks.) To that end, I’m going to quote copiously from Milwaukee Record’s review of the show – their writer clearly did stay awake: “The setlist grouped songs from various albums together, drawing primarily from last year’s onslaught of material (excluding mellow jazz-ish offering Sketches of Brunswick East), but they occasionally referenced older stuff as well. Gizzard songs tend to run together on albums, and there are musical and lyrical motifs that appear across multiple releases. Adding to the band’s mythological puzzle, they like to toss song fragments in between and inside live jams, which included significant portions of “Cellophane” and “Hot Water” (from 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz) and probably others on this night, much to the delight of a sizable contingency of diehards in attendance…The meat of the set featured some of the band’s more dizzying, mathematical pieces. The dynamic shifts of “The Lord Of Lightning” were exaggerated to dramatic effect, and the polyrhythmic maze of “The Fourth Colour” was even more impressive when able to watch as drummers Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore stayed perfectly in synch. There was a surprising amount of improvisation given the unorthodox rhythms and often serpentine compositions that Gizzard favors. Even played straight, there’s something to be said for complicated songs played expertly, and while Gizzard can justifiably be tagged as prog, they get too fast and noisy to embody the usual preconceptions that term evokes. Following an exhausting trio of songs from Nonagon Infinity came the night’s biggest surprise: a stretched-out journey through “The River,” from 2015’s somewhat overlooked Quarters! album. The band cranked up the krautrock influence, turning the breezy tune into an intense, pulsing drone at times, fading almost to nothing in between sections. It brought to mind the heyday of dearly-departed local acts like Catacombz and Worrier, and that year or two when meditative psych/post-punk seemed to be gaining a foothold on the local scene. Maybe Milwaukee has been craving a resurgence in this style. You would’ve thought King Gizzard were local boys made good by the response they got.” That’s most of the article, you can read the rest here and see a couple of better photos than I could get as well, like this fantastic shot of the crowd at the end of the show (there was no encore).

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The show on Saturday was an amazing trip, Calliope’s psychedelic rock enhanced by a hallucinogenic light show and stage backdrop; while it didn’t have the big budget production of the Black Angels show we saw the previous weekend, it was still a great visual experience. Below are photos of Al Kraemer (keyboards, vocals) getting in on the head-banging; Victor Buell (guitar) and Anthony Smith (bass) getting lost in the musical haze.

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From their Facebook page “a heavy yet highly-melodic brand of psychedelic garage rock that combines the classic rock pomp and stomp of Led Zeppelin with the paisley pop melodies and modern musicality of Queens of the Stone Age for a forward-thinking sound rooted in the past. The band’s signature three-guitar attack consists of vocalist Aaron Madrigal, lead guitarist Ed Bruker, and noise machine Eric Cronstein while the he foundation of the the group is laid down by drummer Eric Keyes and bassist Steven Korfhagen. This pairing of instrumentation allows Lemon Sky’s live show to recreate and expand upon their recorded material with visceral textures, tonal layers, and rhythmic intricacies. A Lemon Sky show is nothing if not full, heavy, and intense.”

Yes to all of this. The show was pure joy to watch – there were times when their toes, choreographed in unison, reached out to touch the amazing expanse of foot pedals.

Lemon Sky’s drummer, Eric Keyes, was particularly expressive as he thrashed away, providing power that could easily fill a stadium.

I wasn’t familiar with Lemon Sky’s catalog prior to this show but I definitely remember a few songs they played that appear on Dos, the Halloween-ish “Ash and Bone,” the excellent “Guillotine” (the intro reminiscent of Zeppelin’s “D’Yer Mak’er”) and the absolute killer track “Kept in Beyond” which is an epic psychedelic hard-rock thrasher that brought to mind Zeppelin’s “The Crunge” but – I like it better! (Here is an acoustic version of “Kept In the Beyond” which is also amazing.)  Strains of the more trippy aspects of the Beach Boys peak through in the harmonies on tracks like “Dos” and “Bad Bad” (though way heavier than the Beach Boys). I hope Lemon Sky ventures back to Wisconsin soon, hopefully to somewhere less remote.

**Show photos credited to my friend Mike Collins, who has a much better camera than I do.

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