At the tail end of summer, 2024, two STATIC staff writers embarked on a 15-day road trip and followed King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard to ten cities on their North American tour. To be serialized weekly in STATIC across the next six weeks, God is Calling Me Back Home is a tour diary and a memoir, as well as an examination into the material and spiritual remnants of psychedelic bohemia.
PROLOGUE: A SONG FOR THE LAST ACT
September 1st, 2024
GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA
I feel silly and sick. I’ve been off tour for 2 days now, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I threw up from anxiety today, which hasn’t happened in a long time. I used to do that almost everyday my senior year of high school, worried sick about my girlfriend. Now, one day before the start of my junior year of college, I am just as worked up. I miss my family. I miss my room. I miss my innocence. I didn’t realize how alone I have felt for 2 years straight now, how lost and confused I have been.
I saw a painting by Henry Peters Gray at the Detroit Institute of Art, a little over a week ago now. It showed a veiled, nude woman holding a mirror, revealing the reflection of an upside down world, the sky where the ground should be and vice versa. A small placard displayed the painting’s title, “Truth.”
Something struck me at that moment. The woman’s soft smile seemed to call me out, calmly scolding me for confusing mere reflections of consciousness for my true mind’s eye. I have seen everything upside down for longer than I can remember. I have become a slave to my senses. I sit in my childhood bedroom, listening to “I See Myself” by Geese, and I begin to sob. I don’t know what else to do. I remember why life is beautiful.
For two weeks, I thought of nothing but my friends, family, and my favorite thing in life, which has always been and will forever be music. I will never be the same. My grandmother’s mantra has always been, “But by the grace of God go I.” Today, I begin to truly grasp what she means. I reflect on the many powers outside of my control that acted upon me on this trip, and how they ultimately delivered me back to the comfort of my Mother and Father.
At long last, I am back home, I am safe, and I am surrounded and filled with Love. I take a deep breath, and for what feels like the first time in years…all is quiet.
AM I IN HEAVEN?
August 18th, 2024
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
I look out into a swarm of weirdos and spot someone with bronze curly hair and a black, “NEW YORK FUCKING CITY” shirt . . . there’s J-Mac.
He’s sitting at one of many picnic tables, all littered with colored fabrics in the overcast backyard of a pub in Forest Hills, Queens. Displayed on his table is a white t-shirt with a sorcerer and crystal ball announcing: “KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD, 2024 SUMMER TOUR.”
When J-Mac first asked me to “go on Gizz tour” with him, I was a bit confused. I knew that he was the hippie type, but I didn’t know that there was that scene surrounding this band: chasing every set, selling bootleg merch, meeting new people, peace, love, drugs…it all sounded very exciting.
I wrestled with the decision for several months after, worrying about time and money and all the things that could keep a person from doing what they please. Yet something deep inside of me knew that I had to do this.
I admit, my mind immediately turned to the counterculture of late 1960’s America, a historical moment which has been continually graverobbed for inspiration and aesthetic; I’m guiltier than most. It’s the reason why the documentary “Woodstock 99’” was so impactful to me. The greed, rape, and fire that plagued the attempt at “3 more days of peace, love, and music,” serves as a grim but firm refutation of flower power politics. I tend to meet any attempt to revive that spirit with cynicism.
However, when I consider why I feel called to follow King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard on tour, a few things give me hope that the same spirit that flowed from the Bohemians to the Beats might be at work again. Unlike acts like Phish and Dead & Company, Gizzard feels much more representative of the compassion and resilience the original era allegedly embodied. Their music calls attention to animal cruelty and environmental rights, and they performed in drag for one of their five nights at The Caverns in Tennessee in protest of anti-trans legislation.
Gizzard released their first full length album in 2012, and in the twelve years since have released 25 more. This sort of artistic efficiency would be impressive enough on its own, but they refuse to repeat themselves, exploring different genres, instruments, and atmospheres on each album. While the band has been pumping out records for over a decade now, their heap of hippie-dippie disciples is a fairly recent phenomenon.
This seemed like the perfect opportunity to witness the type of culture that I used to only read about firsthand, only in 2024. I was excited to discover how the modern age has influenced the nature of this American tradition and add myself to a long lineage of people who love rock & roll religiously.
J-Mac has already firmly cemented himself in this tradition, having followed Dead & Company on their final tour the summer prior. Just a month ago, he traveled across North America to play guitar for the New Jersey shoegaze band High. He started his Gizz tour run 3 days before me in Washington D.C. for the opening show of the 2024 North American Tour, as well as attending the first Three-Hour Marathon Forest Hills show last night.
Tonight, I’m joining him for the second New York show, and we will travel across thirteen states and one province to see ten King Gizzard shows together over the next two weeks. Like a true Deadhead, he will be vending self-made merchandise before the shows at fan-organized meetups to help keep us on the road. This is where I first find him on a cloudy afternoon in Queens.
I walk over and give him a big hug. I sit at the table, which is displaying a stack of his white King Gizzard shirts and a few scattered light green lighters, declaring simply “gizz” in the Brat font. A bootlegger next to us sits and continues his conversation with J-Mac.
He is a scraggly, lanky hippie with long straight black hair, a scruffy beard, and one of his purple and green King Gizzard Tie Dyes. Originally from Florida, he studied Chemistry before dropping out to follow King Gizzard on tour. “When I got in line at 7 a.m. at the Anthem in D.C on Thursday, I knew that I was back home,” he tells us, seemingly rushing to get the words out, overwhelmed with excitement and passion. He asks J-Mac if he wants any mushrooms for the show tonight. “I’m actually sober,” J-Mac politely declines.
The same night that J-Mac asked me to go on tour with him, we discussed his sobriety in depth for the first time. He told me about the Wharf Rats, a support group for sober Deadheads. They organize gatherings during set breaks, pass out Narcan on tour, and provide community for fans in recovery. It intrigued me. I wrongly assumed that this sort of lifestyle was codependent with heavy drug use. It is beautiful that the joy of music and community is enough for some people and I am excited to share this experience with one of them.
I admit, I feel a tinge of temptation at the realization that it really would be that easy to score psychedelics among this crowd. “You can do whatever you want at the shows,” J-Mac had told me in the weeks prior, sensing my curiosity, “I just don’t want to travel with any drugs in the car.”
As the fan meetup dwindles, we pack up and head towards the closest thing that we will have to a home for weeks. J-Mac opens the trunk of a gray Toyota Sienna riddled with Grateful Dead Steelie stickers; one reads, “THICC DADS WHO VAPE FOR JERRY.” The inside floor is littered with supplies: Slim-Jims, Pop-Tarts, and an assortment of ramen. We both grab water and chat outside the van. We walk to the stadium while J-Mac tries to sell a few more shirts. A cop wordlessly shoos him away, so we try to find the box office.
Thanks to the savviness of the good people at STATIC Magazine and generosity of Panache Booking and Pitch Perfect PR, we will have a ticket and a photo pass for every single show on our two week tour run. As we approach, the sky darkens and it starts to gently rain. I am getting nervous. I took a photography class in Sophomore year of high school, and have used my camera very infrequently since . . . Undeterred, I decide that I will hopefully trial-and-error my way into some cool shots over the next few weeks.
As I make my way up to the photo-pit, the weather worsens. I drape myself and my bag in a poncho someone was kind enough to give me. The small space between the stage and the rail is packed full of people who seem more confident and competent than me. Geese takes the stage, the NYC based band who will travel with Gizzard for the entire first leg of this tour. Their music is charming and loud . . . really loud. I lost my earplugs on the train, and the massive PA’s assault me with guitars, drums, and lead singer Cameron Winter’s slightly sarcastic voice. Eventually, I see a pair of used foam earplugs sitting on the edge of the stage, and shove them into my ringing ears.
By the time the opening set is over, my insecurity has been replaced with excitement and awe. When the members of King Gizzard walk on stage, the stadium begins to scream. Lead singer Stuart Mackenzie approaches the microphone, a flute in his hand. He tells everyone to take a moment to look around. I turn to the crowd and receive the massive roar that the stadium full of fans offers in return. A semicircle of American flags flap in the distance, dancing in the storm.
Stu lifts his flute to his mouth and, with his first note, fires the starting pistol for tonight’s marathon. A few minutes into the extended jam of “Hot Water,” I see JMac’s curly hair and contorted face floating above the audience, before tumbling over the rail into the photo pit. He grins madly, pats me on the shoulder, and darts back into the crowd. I am immediately swept up by the collective of the photographers, the crowd, and the band.
Just an hour or so in, I begin to understand what might attract this band’s cult-like following. The band make playful quips at one another and the audience as they dance in and out of their many albums, all accompanied by trippy visuals performed live by longtime collaborator Jason Galea. During “Billabong Valley”, keyboard player Ambrose dons a cowboy hat to sing his verse, jumping into the crowd and surfing around on top of an inflatable alligator before strutting back on stage and mooning the crowd briefly.
The band’s energy grows as the night darkens, though mine dwindles. Even as I tire, I am aware that this is the most fun I have had in a long time. I get to do this nine more times over the next two weeks. Still, when the show ends, after a 13 minute long rendition of “Am I In Heaven?,” I feel a strange sadness as the band throws drumsticks, setlists, and kisses out to the crowd. I fight my way through the flood of people exiting, struggling to find J-Mac outside. Through the crowded chaos, I see a white shirt shining high in the night like the Star of Bethlehem.
He’s with our friend Sevin, and I catch up with them while J-Mac sells a few more shirts. We hop back in the van and listen to Geese on the ride back towards Manhattan. I spent my summer riding the subway for hours everyday, so there is something distinctly liberating about watching the staggering skyscrapers grow through the backseat window of a car. We cross the Williamsburg bridge, drop Sevin off in the Lower East Side, then split at my uncle’s apartment in Midtown where my parents are staying this week for my sister’s freshman year move-in at The New School. He pulls the van over on 6th Ave, and we plan to be on the road by noon the next day. I walk inside, buzzing.
After delivering a quick recap of the concert to my Mom, I lie down on the couch and look out the window at the skyline and the H&M tower. Two years ago, we stayed in this same apartment the week before I began my freshman year at NYU. I remember staying up until the sun rose, thinking about my girlfriend, thinking about how I would survive living in the city, thinking about if I was making a terrible mistake… thinking, thinking, thinking.
The memories start flooding back, so I open my laptop and look through the pictures I took today. Soon, the sun begins to rise and birds float through the tall buildings, seemingly unconcerned with the manmade monstrosities confining their flight. As I watch the concrete slowly soak up the natural light, I wonder what could have possibly led me here . . . and where I am about to go.
Elements of the story have been altered and dramatized.