King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Godzilla Bar, September 1

Are we silly to have finally understood the naming of Godzilla Bar only on its final night? It looks like a giant monster has come through the venue and stomped on everything (duh). Now that we know that, we are especially sad to see the venue go. Where else combined the cheap thrill of a haunted house ride with a live music venue?

Thankfully not trashed, we carefully navigate the candlelit path through the wreckage and manage to sidestep a crazy looking dreadlocked guy, and emerge into the glorified crack den that has become a favourite Saturday night these past ten weeks.

The surprise final week line-up, only revealed on the day, turns out to be King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard headlining (could there have been any better reptilian band choice?) along with Frowning Clouds and the Laughing Leaves. We stumble into the band room just as the latter are starting and immediately are excited by their psychedelic sound. Their tunes turning the venue into a psycho beach party for a good half hour.

Frowning Clouds are old favourites of ours and clearly the crowd has this in common. Although they always put on an snappy performance they inject some extra aggression into their vocals this time, which prompts the dreadlocked guy to start humping a couch (woo!).

King Gizzard obviously catches on to this energy and runs with it. They run with it all over the bar actually, as one of the guitarists steps gingerly between bottles, double bent beneath the ceiling. Like watching Godzilla on a high-rise crushing rampage, the crowd’s heads flick left and right with exhilaration. The band give a nice preview of their debut album 12 Bar Bruise (which came out last Friday) and ‘Muckraker’ in particular gets the crowd dancing, jumping on couches, and not caring too much that the smoke machine was going off in their faces. No other venue is really going to be the same after this. With a sense that the end is nigh, there is a definite feeling of impending dinosaur-scale destruction. Those not down for seeing how long the condemned building will remain standing, quickly clear out after the final bars of KGWL.

WORDS: Hannah Joyner