Formerly known as the band with two drummers.
On Thursday night, the faithful filed into the Enmore.
And look, we all knew what we were there for: the other side of the coin.
King Gizz had just spent two nights at the Opera House playing their beautiful, symphonic new album Phantom Island with a full orchestra.
But in Stu’s words? “That shit was boring, this is the real stuff!”
This was the rock show. The messy, sweaty, no-holds-barred counterpart.
The promise? A wild ride through the deeper cuts of their massive, weird, and wonderful catalogue. The reality? A demonstration in controlled chaos.
There was no gentle orchestral swelling here. They kicked off with the outlaw groove of ‘Billabong Valley,’ before diving headfirst into the microtonal churn of ‘All Is Known.’
That was the thesis for the night: no genre unturned, no era off-limits. They’d pivot on a dime from full-throttle thrash to a hypnotic, extended jam, moving like one impossibly tight organism.
You could feel it in the room: a shared, buzzing joy.
This was the homecoming gig we’d waited years for.
It wasn’t about hearing the pristine new album; it was about getting lost in the sprawling, living beast of their back catalogue. They knew it, we knew it.
The whole night built towards a crescendo that felt both inevitable and breathtaking, by the end of it the place was bursting at the seams.
It was a sprawling, frenetic, sweat-drenched journey that somehow made perfect sense.
Trying to describe the momentum of that final stretch is pointless. You just had to be in it.
They left us spent, grinning, and covered in a fine layer of other people’s beer. It was glorious. This wasn’t the polished, cinematic Gizzard of the Opera House.
This was the unrestrained, and utterly vital heart of the band, beating loud and proud in a room full of people who got it.
Sometimes, you don’t need the symphony. You just need the storm.
