Words by TimelandIsWacky

In a rush and can’t read the full recap? Make sure to check out: "Open Water," "Most Of What I Like," "The Lord of Lightning," and "Motor Spirit."

King Gizzard is on fire right now. We’ve had a great tour introduction with 2024-05-15 and a killer follow up with 2024-05-16. Show number three was 2024-05-18 at the Forum Karlin in Prague — amazingly, the band has kept up the pace of the first two shows! The jams are expansive and energetic, the teases are unique and the debuts continue!

Watch The Full Show Here - Recorded by Altered Beast Broadcasting

The band starts on microtonal instruments for this show, kicking off with an intense, jammy “Rattlesnake” -> “Honey” containing a number of Flying Microtonal Banana teases. Even more intense is the sprawling “Open Water” that follows which dives into doom metal territory. The rhythm switches a lot here with Cavs getting a full solo towards the end of the jam. Rounding out the microtonal section was “Pleura”. While not as exploratory as the others, the song was played well and the crowd absolutely connected with it: listen to the “woo” at the end of the first verse to gauge the excitement!
“Ice V” is up next, which is interesting considering they played it at their last Prague show on 2023-03-12, they returned to the song regardless and the funky number did well, especially as it transitioned into “Cut Throat Boogie”. This would also end up as a stand out as it contained teases of the band’s newly debuted “Sad Pilot’, as well as another new song that we currently don’t know the name of.
This year the band have played a handful of songs from 2011-2012, between this and the last show’s “Sea of Trees”, it seems that the band isn’t slowing down. After this two song jam comes a surprise: the second fully electric version of “Most Of What I Like”. The band first played this rendition during the early show on 2023-06-08 at Red Rocks and it has now reappeared. While the band didn’t lean into the Fatboy Slim tease as heavily as they have in others, we did get an extended intro without Joey’s vocals. An interesting take on the song for sure.
Then they get into some heavy jamming. A quick performance of ‘The Reticent Raconteur” brings us to the Murder of the Universe classic “The Lord of Lightning.” This one is very unique as it leads to a long, sinister jam incorporating elements of “Cut Throat Boogie”, “Hypertension”, The Tale of the Altered Beast and the Mind Fuzz suites, before going into the latter four song sequence proper. A competent “I’m In Your Mind” connects straight into a jam-filled “I’m Not In Your Mind”, with elements from “I’m In Your Mind” and “Cellophane” A killer “Cellophane” (introduced as a song about shots) comes next and gets heavy with teases of “Motor Spirit” before spitting us out into a return to home base on “I’m In Your Mind Fuzz.” This wraps up the most intense jamming of the night.

The band ends the night with a selection of metal tracks from throughout the discography. A powerful “Mars For The Rich” is followed by a nice surprise: “The Great Chain of Being.” This is the first performance of the song since its inclusion at The Salt Shed in Chicago on 2023-06-11 as part of a massive “Gaia” > “Motor Spirit” > “The Great Chain of Being” > “Gaia.” The band delivers with this rendition and gives us a rare treat at the end of the set.
Moving away from 2017-2019, Gizzard heads into a fiery “Dragon” which, like previous 2024 performances, goes much faster than the studio version. Surely the person in the audience with the dragon sign that Joey addressed was very happy. While the setlist indicates that this was originally the closer, the band decided to switch it around. Instead they wrapped up with a debut: the first full live performance of “Motor Spirit.” Astute members of the weirdo swarm would remember that the song was played twice in 2023 as part of “Gaia” sandwiches, such as in the previously mentioned Live In Chicago ‘23 performance. However, it took a little less than a year for the entire song to be played, and it was glorious. The band rages through the first section before moving into the dark, Tool-like second section, a slow and intimidating third section and an expansive, explosive ending.

Let’s put the tour so far into a bit of context. We are currently three shows into the band’s 2024 EU tour, each has seen some sort of debut, whether it's the introduction of an old favourite or something completely new. Further to this, they have introduced a whole new set of teases — and we still haven’t seen their full synthesizer setups! This alone is exciting, but right now the band is firing on all cylinders with hard-hitting jams and some incredible set composition. You may have a preference for one show over the other, but you can’t say they aren’t delivering at all of them.
With many more shows left, it’s hard to say where we’re going next. Will there be another debut at the next gig? Will we hear another deep cut tease? Are we going to get even more new lyrics involved? Only time will tell.