Posted by 
When m’lady and I arrived at The Caverns in southern Tennessee for a four-night run of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard concerts we were already pretty tuckered out. We had enjoyed a short, fitful sleep tenting in Henry Horton State Park the night before and had begun the morning with a nice long hike along the Duck River. After that we drove to Lynchburg and took a late-morning tour of the Jack Daniel’s distillery which included a tasting session of five of their best whiskeys, which we followed up with an all-you-can-eat lunch of delicious Southern vittles that filled us both to our brims.
By the time we finally arrived at The Caverns I guess it was four, maybe five o’clock? Months earlier m’lady had received a surprise $1,000 settlement from Air Canada due to a delayed flight and she decided to use the windfall to splurge on one of the twenty brand-new yurts The Caverns was introducing in their new “glamping” area. Who was I to argue? Unfortunately by the time she booked it they only had yurts available for the first two nights, otherwise we wouldn’t have had to bring our camping gear with us at all. And y’know, we both agreed that if we could only have the yurts for two nights then we would’ve preferred nights three and four instead of one and two but whattya gonna do? The friendly yurt concierge called us by name when we pulled up; we were the last people to check in. She gave us a quick tour of our temporary home and I must say, I was impressed.
The yurt/tent was spacious, hip. tasteful, and super-solid. It had a queen-sized bed, a small kitchen with a fridge, microwave, and coffee maker, a sitting area and slace for your luggage, a big bathroom with a stand-up shower, and most importantly: air-conditioning. Sure it was only June 1st (2023), but this was southern Tennessee so it was hot. Definitely over thirty degrees. When the concierge bid us leave we both flopped on the bed and soaked in the cool air before taking turns in the shower.
Social butterfly that I am I spent then next hour walking along the rows of the regular camping area checking out the people. I wasn’t surprised to see a lot of Grateful Dead iconography but it sure wasn’t at every campsite. Some sites were blasting heavy metal, some people were decked out it goth gear and makeup; there was a real variety of music fans in for the weekend.
We left to walk to the venue around 7pm. There was a gate at the edge of the campground where security personnel and ticket-takers were lackadaisically plying their trades, beyond which was a path cleared through the forest. Five minutes later we emerged at the outdoor stage where Gizzard would be performing for the final two nights of the run and found ourselves in a slow lineup that snaked down towards the walled entrance to the cave.
The lineup eventually split in two; to the left was a lengthy and stagnant line of people waiting to buy merchandise while the rest of us branched off to the right, through a large, beautifully ornate door and into the cavern itself. I was surprised to discover that the venue had been built inside the very mouth of the cave. It had been in my mind that the performance space was several hundred feet deep in the cave but I was mistaken; crossing the threshold placed one at the back of a largish natural indoor venue, complete with an extensive bar and large, brand-new bathrooms. It was cool in there; about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, where it remained year-round. The undulating rock ceiling was relatively flat and fairly low, perhaps twenty-five feet above the smooth, poured-cement floor. Random drops of calcium-rich water dripped steadily from the ceiling, leaving the floor too wet to sit on.
(That was a shame because standing on a hard, slanted floor for an extended period can wreak havoc on my lower back, and spending the first hour or two sitting down would’ve helped immensely.)
The concerts would all begin with a DJ that wasn’t. Sure there was ambient music coming from somewhere but there was nobody on the stage, and it sounded to me just like random songs being played through the PA just like every other concert in the world. We grabbed a couple of drinks and found a not-so-uncomfortable corner of rough stone jutting out from the side of the cave to half-sit on.
When the opening band came on the crowd seemed to fall into place for the evening so we staked out a reasonable spot behind the soundboard. I had listened to a couple of Kamikaze Palm Tree’s songs online so I knew they were anti-pop and weird and while I hadn’t been hooked in by any stretch I was truly looking forward to their set. And man, they sucked with a capital SUCK.
(I should have known that a band with such a stupid name would be, well, stupid. I mean, if the moniker a group comes up with for their creative collective isn’t even remotely clever or engaging then why should I expect the group’s music to be clever or engaging?)
Kamikaze Palm Tree (ugh) consists of two men (on guitar and bass) and two women (on drums and keyboards). Their music was mildly interesting but the arrangements were supremely lame and boring, as was the playing and the delivery from one side of the stage to the other. Okay, the guitarist had a couple of neat parts here and there but then the whole song would be just him playing that same neat part over and over.
The drummer was the vocalist and to say she was uninspired would be a compliment. Frankly, their involvement in this King Gizzard residency tour struck me as nothing less than an insult, both as a music fan and as a musician. When it occurred to me that Kamikaze Palm Tree would soon be opening three nights at Red Rocks I actually got a bit angry. So many musicians deserve that honour so much more than stupid KPT. I could’t help but wonder which of the two women in the band was sleeping with which member of Gizzard; both times I had seen KG&TLW before this they had brought all-female bands along with them from Australia to open the shows, so it seemed that it had to be a thing (though I had quite liked both of those bands).
Whatever.
Pretty much bang-on at 9pm the six members of Gizzard weaved through the crowd and stepped onto the stage to thunderous applause (there was no backstage entrance; it’s a cave so there’s just one way in and one way out). And man, they were great! Though I must say that the strength and power of their sound has dimmed significantly since losing their second drummer. That surprised me because when they had two drummers it seemed to me that they were always, and I mean always playing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. There was never any embellishments or I’ll-play-this-while-you-play-that going on so I figured when the one guy left the other guy would carry the weight just as easily but no, there was now a noticeable void in their oomph.
Though it’s King Gizzard so it was still plenty oomphy. They played two solid nonstop hours and somehow included several songs I knew. I mean sure, I have a few of their records but c’mon, the band releases a new album every twenty minutes or so and I find it nearly impossible to stay on top of their output (heck, they’ve dropped three records since I started writing this). The band was a lot jammier than the other times I had seen them, even jamming into and out of songs here and there, a likely result of bandleader Stu Mackenzie’s recent obsession with the Grateful Dead. And though the concert was relentlessly great, with neither a setbreak nor even a break before their standing encore, I had a hard time truly enjoying myself.
As the evening wore on my rough sleep from the night before compounded by the long, active day had caught up to me. I had become exhausted and my feet and back were killing me! The first beer of the show had sat atop my prodigious lunch from Bobo’s and filled my stomach such that I could drink no more. But it turns out there were other problems.
After the show I couldn’t wait to fall into bed, which I did immediately. I slept solidly until 3:30am when I woke up sweating profusely and shivering. I figured it was my sweat being chilled by the air conditioner but m’lady mumbled that she didn’t feel hot. That’s when I figured I must be ill. Oh man! A quick, four-day concert vacation and I’m going to be sick the whole time?!?!? I laid there worrying while I suffered for about an hour before finally getting up and going to that private bathroom of ours. I didn’t feel like I had to vomit but I thought if I could it might help. Turned out I did have to, for as soon as my eyes fell upon that porcelain statue my insides came flooding out. Ten minutes later I was back in bed feeling like gold. No more sweating, no more nausea. I even pulled up the blankets, which felt wonderful. I still didn’t sleep so great but I did sleep. Thank gawd we were in the yurt. Back-and-forth between the tent and a porta-potty would’ve been hell.
Either way, one show down, three more to go.
Todd Man Out 