Words by W.B.T.G. Slinger, artwork by grey_locke
Is there one singular song that best charts the course of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard? If so, then I think it may be “The River”. The tune was conceived during downtime of one of the band’s most important and intense periods during their first US visit, when they had just played 14 shows in 22 days while driving from Texas to New York and settled for a month to jam in a cabin in the woods. Here, the lush environment acted as a headwater of inspiration for their most accomplished songwriting to date, conceiving not only “The River” but the earliest stages of Nonagon Infinity and even later material such as “The Fourth Colour.” The song is a huge evolutionary marker for the group, especially in the higher orders of its multi-movement structure that alternates between the lyrical parts 1 & 3, and jammy parts 2 & 4, all based around a surprising flip of Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond’s iconic jazz standard “Take Five.” Upon its release the song was both a surprising departure and a major milestone, and would quickly become one of their most-played songs ever (currently 4th). It is by this rapid flow of performances that the very path of the band itself can be tracked, as the song has now seen various eras of preferred styles that erode and reshape into new contexts, such as the accumulation of new guitars and gear, Eric’s departure from the band, or the increasingly diverse genres of new material it was to be placed among in setlists.
Narrowing this journey of a song down to only five live versions was tough, so before we get into it I would like to qualify them with two brief honorable mentions:
The first is the particularly wild jam of the PALP festival “Yenisey River” that I would have included if it wasn’t already selected by Rowdy for Nice V Vol.1. The second is the version in Live In San Francisco ‘16 that I wanted to briefly note as the standard way the song was played for several years, as tight and rehearsed as possible to reflect the machine-like energy that dominated that whole Nonagon Infinity era.
Let the following versions show you how the band broke the banks of this approach, and the fathoms to which their new visions could take them.
Here is a Youtube playlist of all the picks.
The River > Wah Wah > Road Train Medley, Luxembourg, Madrid, & Manchester October 2019
Of course they couldn’t keep up the Nonagon pace forever, and by 2019 the band was seeking to loosen their setlists up a bit in pursuit of a new performance concept: a three-hour long marathon set. This transition period is best captured in Chunky Shrapnel, the compilation live album and concert film made during their 2019 Europe tour. “The River” here is the perfect confluence between the older, tighter Gizz and the newer jamming Gizz, especially still in this classic 2016-style pairing with “Wah Wah” and “Road Train,” so well practised that you would be forgiven in this instance if you didn’t notice these are actually three separate performances spliced together. But what sets this version of the song apart from its well-practised legacy is the jamming, where for one of the first times we get to hear Part 2 extended out for the band to experiment with, making the song heavier, and dropping some as-written elements completely. The presence of a camera on stage also sets this version apart, allowing a first-person view of what it's like for the band and their various dynamics, such as Stu and Joey’s iconic face-to-face exchange, trading riffs and licks to kick off a lively Part 2. The competing pair drive the band forward as the deep, saturated tone of Stu’s 12-string Hagstrom strums a strong contrast to Joey’s fluid picking. The rapid pace propels the jam outward, new voicings are improvised, and familiar ones dropped as the structure begins to swirl away. Just before they lose track of the song they drop back to a quiet groove, heady with anticipation for Part 3. Even if you’re watching the footage, blink and you’ll easily miss the cut to Madrid five days later when they are still going with the same muted groove, until out of nowhere Stu starts singing under his breath: ‘Wah-Wah Wah-Wah.’ A punchy rendition of that song begins, rife with references back to “The River” thanks to the complementary 7/4 and 5/4 time signatures. Then while it still feels like they could get back on course to finish what they started, the medley ends on a typically powerful “Road Train.”
It is from around this point that “Road Train” started to be played significantly less frequently, making way for new material and longer average song durations that might well have been kicked off by this particularly chunky “The River.”
Brisbane Princess Theatre 19-12-2021 Acoustic set
On the rare occasion that a show opens with “The River,” you know you’re in for a treat. In this case it starts their first billed fully acoustic, full-band set (excluding prior non-billed ‘secret’ warm up shows, or previous limited-personnel mini-sets) at Brisbane’s Princess Theatre in the well-known Southbank district right by the city’s famously meandering, disgustingly brown river. This is as blissful as King Gizzard gets, and sets the bar for the then-newly established ‘2.0’ jam-Gizz. Eric’s then-recent departure from the band seems to have been a catalyst to seek looser, open-ended playing with longer unplanned jams and dynamic, unique, and even themed setlists.
This version is a prime example of that change in effect — at the time it was the longest ever version by almost four minutes!
Part 1 starts out calm, played straight and joyful, leading into an effervescent part 2, reminiscent of a pleasant day paddling some gentle rapids. After a few minutes, the flow lulls and the band springs into a new depth of improvisation, keeping the rhythm but letting go of all original aspects of the song — and never falling back on familiar teases from other songs. Then just as the jam gets too far out, some of the familiar motifs and riffs trickle back in for a fade-out back into the lyrics of part 3. From here on out they stay relatively on course for a groovy, lightly embellished part 4.
Recorded during the height of Australian pandemic lockdowns two states from their home-waters, the rest of the residency tour would be cancelled the next day when one of the touring crew contracted Covid-19. Stu also later explained that at this point in time he was experiencing a gastrointestinal flare-up that nearly stopped the show, had it not had such a chill vibe allowing him to play seated. All things considered, it's basically a miracle that everyone was together in this place to play the song at all, in a time that was in need of miracles.
Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Colorado October 10, 2022
Maybe still the band’s most anticipated performances ever, the ‘22 Red Rocks marathon shows were the high-water mark after three years’ preparation and delays, landing right at the peak of ‘Gizztober,’ the month in which the band released three new albums.
This is the definitive Gizz 2.0 version of the song, and the first to be dubbed with its own name: the “Evil River.” If 2021 saw the song expand outward for jamming, this rendition completes that vision, going another few minutes longer with enough space for everyone to have their say in a jam that pretty much could just be its own song.
First is the extended two-minute intro, setting the pace for the song and immediately establishing several vamps to foreshadow what's to come. A tone of near impatience pushes the lyrics of part 1 along. Stu even takes a little moment in between verses on his whammy bar.
Then they’re off into part 2, Stu and Joey do their customary trade-offs before Ambrose takes the first solo on harmonica, a trippy, warbling intro of weirdness. The lead guitars take on a harder edge, with some dissonant sustains and shredding to match Cavs’ increase in intensity. Seemingly without a plan, all that remains of the original song is the bass and time signature pounding away for Stu to get technical with some licks from “Crumbling Castle,” getting them to the breakdown and a short “Wah Wah” segment. Here is where the band once again cruises into uncharted waters for another improvised estuary for the drawn-out part 3 transition to begin proper. The remainder of the song is played out strong and with celebration.
The quintessence of Gizzard is everchanging, but it always seems to be best as a scrappy garage psych band playing as heavy as they can. Here might be the first time this ideal was captured in such detail live on stage — reverberated back off a 300 million-year-old riverbed, nearly 2 kilometers above sea level no less — as an equal match in style and quality to their new studio releases (such as “The Dripping Tap,” “Hypertension,” and “Iron Lung.”) This synergy between stage and studio is the sure sign of the band operating at their best, just creating in real time both with reckless abandon and no compromise of output.
The Salt Shed, Chicago 11th Nov 2023
This is another of few versions to get its own name: the “Dead River.” After some members attended Dead & Company at Wrigley Field the previous night, the band was freshly inspired to take this one a bit deeper than usual. Starting with a disoriented intro, the band are visibly chilled by the eager air blowing off the Chicago River close by. The performance has a certain discordant urgency while they focus on warming their fingers, and Stu’s iconic left-right hops look more like an athlete struggling to warm up. Part 2 devolves away from established structure quicker than ever, and once the ice is broken, the band gets in the stride of a metal jam with plenty of toms and tapping.
But out of nowhere Stu breaks it down to a classic beat-less, murky, “Space” style abstraction. With little trepidation the band explores the eddy a while, where they have scarcely been before or since. After a couple of ambling minutes, Stu wells up some purpose with a Bo Diddley beat, one of the band’s first ever jamming tools that was of course also a major touchstone of the Grateful Dead. The band join in with spirit (and a “Dark Star”-esque gong), but the song still heads down the wrong tributary, begging another breakdown before Stu pulls it back together with an unmistakable, drawn-out dana-nana-nana… to bring it back home.
2025 saw King Gizzard get orchestral, including reinterpretations of a few select classics from the back catalogue for the Phantom Island tour. “The River” was by far the oldest, and in my opinion, the most deserving candidate; it opened set 2 of every orchestra show. This treatment is the perfect way to expand the higher order of the song’s composition, and elevate it to reflect a decade’s evolution of vision and scope. At this point the improvised part 2 jam is well and truly established as part of the song, so this reinvention accordingly makes it a centrepiece, skipping the repetition of part 3 entirely.
This version was from the last of only three orchestra shows streamed, near the end of the tour with all the material at its most practised. This was also the only orchestra tour stop conducted by Chad Kelly, composer of the orchestral additions, at perhaps the world’s most iconic acoustic music venue: the Sydney Opera House, situated on a pier jutting out over the Parramatta River.
Part 1 starts with a positively buoyant string section, with strong use of counterpoint and some brass accents to make the band float like they never have before, and they sail quickly into the next phase.
As part 2 begins, conductor Chad Kelly dampens down the orchestra to sit back and enjoy the jam, a convention that might just classify this as King Gizzard’s foray into Third Stream. Obviously running to a stricter time constraint, the band forgo the Stu/Joey exchange and plunge into a more expansive full-band ‘evil’ jam, fully refreshing the tone of the whole room nearly ninety minutes into the show. The camera picks up a great little moment with Stu crouching down side-stage to serenade a small mosh that has congregated in the aisle of the normally seated venue. The vibe escalates, Cavs pounding on the toms as the lead guitars reach a signature siren-like proportion, and with a level of control that is beginning to sound rehearsed, the song dwindles back down to a level the orchestra can rejoin at for the jubilant reprise of part 4.
In the spirit of naming versions, I’ve come to think of this one as the ‘Siale River’ after the exceptionally rare albino juvenile humpback whale that had just recently been spotted a short distance from the venue in the mouth of the harbour, referenced by Uncle Michael Kelly in his acknowledgement of country that opened this performance.
This arrangement is the only way the song has been played since June 2025, so with Stu’s confirmation that the orchestra experiment is over it leaves me wondering what is next for the song? Will part 3 continue to be skipped? Will the song see a drastic genre shift in line with their upcoming studio albums? Will the part 2 jam just become its own song? All we can do is trust in the river.