I’d read that the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard / ORB / Stonefield show at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom was on the verge of selling out. I’m pretty sure it did, judging by the line to get into the venue.
The top photo there is from the back of the line, which was over two blocks from the Aragon’s front door. The second photo shows the line along the Red Line El track wall on the west side of the Aragon. I’ve never seen a line this long to get into the Aragon. As one guy put it as he walked past me to get to the end of the line, “Take that all of you who say ‘Who?’ whenever I mention this band!”
The line was so long that, unfortunately, I missed Stonefield’s set. They were so loud, however, that you could hear them outside the venue when a Red Line train wasn’t passing by. I might get to see Stonefield at this year’s Levitation Austin festival, so it could still work out okay for me.
ORB, who have added a guitarist since I last saw them, put on a solid set of stoner-psych that included a lot of fuzz, metal riffs, and avalanche drumming.
I knew King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s set was going to be nuts when people were already chanting, clapping, and cheering during the soundcheck. Plus, KGATLW’s new album, Infest the Rat’s Nest, is a thrash metal record, and I was sure songs from it were going to cause a frenzied mosh pit.
Sure enough, they opened with “Self Immolate” and “Mars for the Rich” off the new record and the crowd immediately compressed by about thirty percent as two pits broke out – one on each side of the stage. I figured they wouldn’t play too much off the new record, as thrash metal is hard to play and they had an entire show to do that would probably cover everything from psychedelic hippie music to blues.
They proved me right by following the metal with the swing of “Plastic Boogie” off the first album they released this year, Fishing for Fishies, which is a blues record. Three cuts off Polygondwanaland followed – “Inner Cell,” “Loyalty,” and “Horology.”
“We’re gonna play an old one,” lead singer Stu Mackenzie said. “How old?” said the guy behind me. “Old for them is like an album from last year.” True, considering KGATLW put out five albums in 2018. The “oldies” turned out to be “I’m in Your Mind” and “I’m Not in Your Mind” from 2014’s I’m in Your Mind Fuzz. “The Balrog” from Murder of the Universe got everyone jumping again, and I was in the pit by the time they got to “Evil Death Roll” from Nonagon Infinity. The whole crowd was jumping during “Rattlesnake,” which lead to other cuts from Flying Microtonal Banana including “Sleep Drifter” and “Billabong Valley.”
They swung back into a boogie set with more cuts off Fishing for Fishies and even threw in their synth-single “Cyboogie” before ending the night with a wall of death-inducing “Planet B” and “Hell” from Infest the Rat’s Nest. They began the night with metal and ended the night with metal, leaving everyone sweaty and giddy.
“Thanks for coming. Thanks for getting crazy. You guys are fucking crazy. It’s great,” Mackenzie said at one point. It was a crazy crowd, probably the craziest I’ve been in since I saw Thee Oh Sees in Austin last year. The mosh pit was friendly, too. Twice the pit I was in stopped so people could turn on cell phone lights to look for, find, and hold up dropped stuff like someone’s glasses and a wallet. A woman walked by me wearing a shirt that read, “They only walls be build are walls of death.” on the back.
That’s metal, all right, as was this show.
Keep your mind open.
[Boogie on over to the subscription box while you’re here.]