"Live in San Francisco '16" by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

These psych punk rockers aren't from San Francisco, but their best live album is.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
Live in San Francisco ‘16 (2020)
ATO Records

If you were still bummed about San Francisco’s fading garage rock scene from the early 2010s, then it’s possible that on the night of May 25, 2016 you found yourself at the Independent flailing to one of the world’s tightest, wildest, most psychedelic rock bands. Formed in Melbourne, Australia in 2010, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are not from the Bay but sound like they could be. Like their influences Frank Zappa and the Flaming Lips, they embrace experimentation, having explored Middle Eastern-inspired quarter tone tuning, thrash metal, prog, electronic music, and more.

But this setlist is heavily weighted toward the psych material from I’m in Your Mind Fuzz (2014) and their then-new album Nonagon Infinity (which, as the title hints, features nine songs each blending seamlessly into the next, including the last track into the first). From beginning to end, Live in San Francisco ‘16 is meditation masquerading as a headbanger.

Listen on Spotify / Apple Music or buy the vinyl on the band’s official shop.