King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard at Electric Brixton

5^th November 2025

Antigoni Pitta

Shot by Nick Bennett

Antigoni Pitta Shot by Nick Bennett

5 November 2025

“Everybody have fun last night?” King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard frontman Stu Mackenzie calls out from the stage at Electric Brixton. “We did! Let’s do it again!” he adds before the music starts.

Contrary to what the band onstage might suggest, this isn’t a regular rock show – in fact, it’s not a rock show at all. This is night two of the band’s rave sets at the venue, and the third on their world tour. Adding these dates was a surprising – even risky – move from the Australian group, known for their rowdy psych rock gigs, but considering their genre-spanning, 27-album catalogue has also explored electronic and synth-based sounds, it was only a matter of time.

Instead of their usual setup, a Franken-synth table of oscillators, modular synths and sequencers is centre stage, with Mackenzie, Joey Walker, Ambrose Kenny-Smith, and Cook Craig gathered around it. They’ve been known to roll it out at their normal concerts to play a few songs, but it’s never been the star of the show. At first, it’s not entirely obvious how they’ll translate the flowing, jamming style of their usual performances into this one, but it soon becomes clear they know exactly what they’re doing.

First up is Set, from the band’s entirely synth-driven album Butterfly 3000, which expands into a nearly 20-minute-long jam, kept in tune by drummer Mickey Cavanagh and bassist Lukey Harwood. The set flows into 2.02 Killer Year, another track from the same record, its melodic synths letting the audience breathe before dropping into a techno breakdown that works the crowd into a frenzy, opening up a moshpit.

Eventually, it settles into the third Butterfly 3000 track of the night, Dreams – which gets its live debut. The value of having physical percussion is really evident here, grounding the performance as the jams veer into krautrock territory, sometimes with a touch of Silver Apples, the electronic rock pioneers whose Simeon synth was not unlike KGLW’s setup for the night.

Dreams dissolves into another 15-minute-long techno jam as a seemingly endless stream of crowdsurfers keep security busy. With Kenny-Smith on saxophone and Mackenzie on flute, the music slows down into Shanghai (which was teased earlier on), blending with parts from Grow Wings and Fly.

The last 40 minutes are perhaps the most experimental and memorable of the night. The haunting outro to Flamethrower leads to Magenta Mountain, which in turn flows into a funky jam. Slowly, it melds into an electronic arrangement of acoustic song Sense, before transitioning into Kepler-22b, with Mackenzie changing some of the lyrics to “dancin’ is good for ya” – and the audience takes it to heart. For the next 20 minutes or so, the room erupts in dance as the band pulls out all the stops; the tempo gets faster and faster, finally reaching a well-won crescendo.

Everyone leaves the venue sweaty, wide-eyed, and smiling wide – signs of a good rave. Once again, KGLW prove they are true artists, but most of all, here to give people a good time, and have fun doing it.

Antigoni Pitta
Photos: Nick Bennett

For further information and future events, visit King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s website here.

Watch the video for Grow Wings and Fly here: