For a band that can seemingly do anything, one thing fans assumed would never happen would be for them to play one of the most popular songs off their 18th album, Butterfly 3000: "Interior People."
The song and single dropped in 2021, and despite creating a super trippy and popular video for it, and even though outlets like Brooklyn Vegan said it "might be their catchiest, most immediate song to date," they never performed it live.
Since Butterfly 3000, the band has written, recorded, and released eight albums (two of them double LPs). When would they have time to learn how to play the intricate tune live? And why would they even want to having even-newer material?
Turned out the six weeks they had off this summer on the first leg of their US Canada Tour was a working vacation.
Indeed, between their three-hour Gorge gig in September and their return to LA at the Forum in October the talented Aussies learned how to play (at least) two songs live that fans have been waiting years to rock out to.
"Interior People" finally got its live debut Monday night (11/4) at the sold out Frost Amphitheatre in Stanford, CA.
What took so long? Andrew O'Brien writes in Live for Live Music that it's complicated.
"That resistance to performing Butterfly 3000 material live is understandable given the strict parameters used in its creation," he theorized. "Each song began with arpeggiated loops composed on a modular synthesizers, a medium with which the band was relatively unfamiliar at the time. Each song was intentionally written in a major key, forcing them toward sunnier sonics."
There's been some buzz around the fun tune ever since Eggy started covering it shortly after it was released. O'Brien reports that recently Phish had been learning it in rehearsals and were close to covering it themselves when someone clued them into the fact that Eggy had been playing it for a couple years already.
Yo, Trey, we'd like to introduce you to a long-running website called setlist.fm where you can search for such things.
Just type in setlist.fm/advanced, then in the second box type in the song you want to blow your fans' minds with.
In this case, you'd have seen Eggy has performed it 18 times so far. And they're the only band committed enough to learn it and keep it in their set. Don't hold your breath for the Gizz to do the same.
Perhaps the band learned it and played it just so it could be established that Eggy isn't the only group capable of rocking it. And for all we know they might have just unveiled it that one time only in Northern Cal and never again.
There are 20 original songs King Gizzard has played once or twice and then never again.
Another song on the just-played-once list was another live debut the band had been sitting on for a few years, "Intrasport."
This is an even older song that dropped in 2020 from the band's 16th album, "K.G." but never was performed live until Sunday (11/3) at the California central coast city of Paso Robles.
And Trey, no one has had the courage to try to cover that funky freak show. Actually this is one of those disco songs LCD Soundsystem would have an easier time covering than the jammy Phish.
At both of the Sunday and Monday gigs, the majority of the tunes were from their 26th, and most recent album, Flight b741, which came out in August. All ten songs from that LP have been performed live, in fact half of them have been played before audiences 10 or more times.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard has a dozen more shows left on this tour.
Several of the shows are already sold out and expect that trend to continue, so if you are on the fence about seeing this wild band live this year, and they're playing nearby, go to their website and pick up tickets while they last.
