Nearly three full years of agonizingly waiting, wishing, and hoping for King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard to return to the USA and last night at The Fox Theater in Pomona, California, our wishes were granted. Please read on so that we can properly express our infinite feelings and gratitude towards the current greatest rock band in the world.

If you’ve been initiated into the Gizzverse, or even if you haven’t, there’s a pretty good chance that you know you’re never getting the same show twice when you head to see King Gizzard. While the band opened up their tour in San Diego at Humphrey’s by the Bay the night before and delivered an eclectic set list of hits, the fans in Pomona were treated to an extra jammy and unbelievably heavy set list of classics, unreleased tracks, and more. 

Opening the night off with a staple of past shows, the Mind Fuzz suite off of 2014’s I’m In Your Mind Fuzz, the crowd didn’t waste a solitary moment getting into full on mosh mode. We’ll be honest as if we were right in the thick of it, the pent up rage of the last two years was the main energy inducer of the night. We’ve been dreaming of this moment ever since they announced the initial tour, and considering this was our 8th Gizz show, we absolutely knew what to expect once it started. Having recounted some stories of the night on the King Gizzard subreddit, it appears there were a lot of first timers in attendance, and we now welcome them with open arms. Your addiction to the band has now properly begun.

Keeping to the heaviness of the night, the band moved into “The Great Chain of Being”, a specific track we thought we’d never see live, but fully lived up to the hype. Now while the band did also play a bunch of songs off of their upcoming record Omnium Gatherum, such as “The Dripping Tap”, “Gaia”, and more, we wholeheartedly think the highlight of the night had to be “Work This TIme” off of Oddments. It’s consistently been a go to chill track to decompress from the rest of their discography, however guitarist Joey Walker lit up the The Fox Theater with a two minute solo to close out the track that legitimately sent shivers down our spines. It’s as if the whole venue stopped for a moment to fully appreciate what they were witnessing and no one moved a muscle. For us, it’s a memory we’ll hold forever as it was just so unexpected, yet perfectly placed.

Closing the night out with “Rattlesnake” was a pleasant surprise, and they even threw in glimmers of “O.N.E.” and “See Me” off of L.W.. Seeing as though L.W. might be our favorite record of theirs released over the past few years, we wish they would have played them in their completion, but we’re not complaining, it just means we’re going to have to get to another show as soon as possible. Speaking of, we’ll be at their Santa Barbara show at The Arlington Theatre. If you see us, come say hey!

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