Live Recap: King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Bring Their Residency Tour to Salt Shed
This past Sunday night, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard returned to Chicago for the first of their three-night sold-out residency here at the Salt Shed.
Despite it being nearly mid-June, the weather was unseasonably cold and windy, but that didn’t stop King Gizz’s dedicated fan base from coming out in droves. Amongst the jackets and beanies I saw walking into the Shed, I saw some folks wearing wizard hats and even someone rocking a lizard costume in homage to the band.
It’s been a few years since I last saw King Gizz here, and in that time they’ve released more albums than I can count on two hands, so I wasn’t sure which songs to expect on their set list. Many of the fans in attendance on Sunday night were planning on attending multiple nights of the tour (either in Chicago or elsewhere), but even they wouldn’t really know what to expect as KGWL has the tendency to change up their set from show to show.
On Sunday, the music kicked off with “Pleura” and “O.N.E.” from the 2021 album L.W. Just before launching into the third song of the evening, the band invited an audience member, whose name we learned was Seb, onto the stage to introduce the next song. Standing next to band members Joey Walker and Stu Mackenzie and their dual microphone stand, Seb commenced the performance of “Nuclear Fusion” by growling the song title in a similar fashion to what you can hear on the studio version. Seb’s short-but-sweet guest appearance got a raucous round of applause from the crowd.
From the jump, audience members began moshing and crowd surfing, but their energy only amplified when Mackenzie took a moment to thank everyone for coming out and braving the gnarly weather, adding “the best way to stay warm is to move your body.” Later on in their set, I stood on the Salt Shed’s balcony and got to take in the aerial view of the giant mosh pit, at one point even getting to witness a circle pit.
Throughout King Gizz’s two-hour set, they mixed in a lot of diverse musical styling and genres, but for the most part it swayed jam band-esque, which is fitting because the band jokingly dedicated one of their songs to John Mayer. Mayer was in town the same weekend for shows with Dead and Company, but if you ask me, I’d much prefer to watch “The Grateful Gizz” in concert! KGWL added texture to their live performance by peppering in flute (played by Mackenzie) and saxophone (played by Ambrose Kenny-Smith) on some of the songs. The evening closed out with a performance of “Boogieman Sam” from the 2019 album Fishing for Fishies.
Check out photos of the evening below, and see where you can catch the tour next here.
