Celebrating the end of an era with one of their last North American performances ever, Kikagaku Moyo absolutely commanded the stage at this year’s Desert Daze music festival. Fans were in complete awe from beginning to end, including us, so please let us tell you about it and try to relive the moment.

Fresh off the release of their last album ever, Kumoyo Island, it was both a heartwarming feeling and one of uncertainty about hearing these songs for the first and last time in a live setting. Luckily and to no surprise, the band completely transcended these songs from the recorded versions into these larger than life live recordings. Truly, it’s like they took the listener on a spiritual and adventurous journey as they slowly built these songs up into pure explosions of sound at the end. A ton of their music is right in your face from the beginning, however the live versions are certainly much different than from what you’d hear listening to their albums straight through.

As impressive as Kumoyo Island was, we were obviously thrilled to hear other major hits off of their albums like Masana Temples and Forest of Lost Children. The last time we had the opportunity to see the band was actually at Desert Daze in 2018, but honestly four years is way too much in between to see one of the greatest live bands of our generation. The control they have on their instrumentation, the immense amount of focus that you can visibly see on their faces, and the musicianship is truly hard to measure. They opened up with our personal favorite “Gatherings”, and from there, it was a mind blowing experience that kept us on our toes. In fact, we were surrounded by a ton of festival goers who had never had the chance to see them, so we’re happy they got one last one in before it never happens again.

We’d recommend seeing them live on this tour if there’s any chances left, but if not, at least give their full discography a run whenever you get the moment. We hope to hear some iteration of their sound or music in the future, but for now, we’ll appreciate what we got in the past.

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