There was already smoke in the air from barbecues (and other things) when my dad and I pulled into Fairmount Park, where the Dell Music Center amphitheater is located. "You can really smell the Gizzard," he said to me. The venue appeared to be at or near maximum capacity by the time the main act began.

Brooklyn-based band Geese opened the show with an impressive set. Their style seemed to be Southern rock with an indie twist. One could say they sounded like ZZ Top and looked like Weezer. The performance was tight and professional. They worked up a sweat and warmed up the crowd with some very excellent tunes.

The crowd cheered when King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard took the stage. That six-member band from the Land Down Under opened with a strange, energetic rock music: their signature style features fuzzy vocals with an almost nasal quality, yelps and shouts, intricate melodies, and minor notes in unexpected places.

The performance transitioned into a long stretch of blues rock. These songs were much more traditional compared to the magical and strange sounds from before, but the band played with just as much skill, art, and enthusiasm. During the set, the band utilized many different kinds of instruments, from guitars and bass, to drums and a gong, to keyboard and flute, and even some advanced electronic music technologies unidentifiable to my untrained eye.

At one point, in between songs, the frontmen quoted some lyrics from "You're The Voice" by John Farnham, and informed the audience that "You're The Voice" was an "unofficial" Australian national anthem. Apparently, you can't get away from it there— "it flows pathologically through all the cells in our bodies"— but if you leave Australia and try to bring it up, nobody knows what you're talking about. They had to clarify that the band was not going to be performing "You're The Voice." Instead, they played "Le Risque," from King Gizzard's latest album, Flight b741.

In the latter half of the concert, the visuals displayed on the screen at the back of the stage turned from random trippy swirls and shapes to captivating cartoon animations. One sequence featured many different colored crocodiles waddling and flying around to the rhythm of the music.

The concert wrapped up with songs from two more of the prolific King Gizzard's recent albums. First, they played two songs from my favorite album of theirs, PetroDragonic Apocalypse; or, Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation. The songs they played were "Dragon" and "Flamethrower," heavy metal facemelters about hellish fiery demise. After shredding like hell for the whole concert thus far, they then nimbly transitioned into electronic dance mode, the two frontmen putting down their guitars and gathering around a table that ostensibly supported a board of turntables, buttons, and other sampling and synthesizing tools. They ended the concert with a rendition of "Set," off their synthedelic album The Silver Cord.

Having witnessed this, a nearly three-hour display of their genre-crossing and -conquering skills, I can say with satisfaction that the mighty King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard truly ruled the realm that night.

Opening the show with Geese!