“We’ll play till they stop us”
[wpvideo SWVVkYLW]
It was a dreary afternoon. The sky was overcast, and the wind was a little bit too cool for early June. Despite the weather we were in line for the concert that was in such demand it sold out. Luckily, we had bought tickets months ahead of time. Every time I go to a show in the Pabst, the architecture of Milwaukee’s Pabst theater always takes my breath away. We find our seats and wait for the show to start. I get impatient and buy a white claw and a Guinness for my boyfriend.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard played in Milwaukee on the 9th of June. When the lights first came on a different Australian band strut on stage, every single one of them sporting mullets. Spiit’s cacophonous punk attitude filled the whole theater. People started dive bombing into their fellow crowd members in the front. I was flabbergasted at the choice of a punk band to play before the headliner, a psychedelic rock band. I’m afraid to say that, by the end, I wanted to go home.
I promised my boyfriend to stay for only a couple more songs right before King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. As I listened I held my left wrist’s fingers to count. Slowly my hands dropped to my sides as I heard the familiar flange of the guitar. Rattlesnake permeated the room with the sound of their flawless guitar riffs. The sheer amount of music that they knew by heart was impressive. By the end of the show, all people were jamming to polyrhythmic psychedelic rock and were demanding encore. The band gave in and eventually played us a song that they hadn’t performed in a while, they told us.
At the end of the show I was happy that I went. Despite the horrible weather and a less than stellar opener, the headliner took our standard of what a good performance was and elevated it.
