With 1 Australian, 10 European, and 3 USA raves in the books, and one more rave planned for the AUS Fall ‘26 run, how many more of these can we realistically expect?
Alien Metal is out, much later than the band initially envisioned. We know from some of the interviews around its release that the band has not one but two albums “three quarters finished”. One of these, presumably, is bluegrass(ish) and features Billy Strings. The tea leaves seem to point to Alien Metal being a relatively brief album cycle.
Crowd size at the recent USA raves seem to point to less demand for the raves as a full-show format: FH Sat Rave was notably less full than FH Fri Rock. K Bridge (announced late and on Sunday, too) was I dunno, maybe 6-7k attendance?
A short album cycle, combined with the financial considerations relative to the full-set raves, the table sets becoming a staple at the “standard” shows, and realistically a bunch of Billy Strings-centric shows coming next year… is there any room left for rave shows?
Of course, they’re notorious for just throwing caution to the wind and playing the style of shows that keep themselves happy. So maybe there is hope. Perhaps we get some multi-night runs with a rave night mixed in. But its hard to see how they fit into 2026. And given how fast the band moves through their phases… yeah… maybe we’ve seen the last rave show for a while after the next one in Australia?
I suppose that’s just a really long winded way of saying boy I hope the electronic Head On/Pill wasn’t a one-off!
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It’s interesting how polarized the show reviews for N3 at Forest Hills are. Not sure how that kind of reaction will affect all this.
I was open to the “experimental” approach of that show, but I could see some people around me tuning out or getting antsy.
Yeah I was surprised how many convos I overhead waiting at doors (which is probably a long-time-fan heavy environment) and in the merch lines, etc, where folks were negative about AM. Or more commonly “I don’t get it” or “I’m just not familiar with the genre at all”. Given the reaction to Nathan becoming a part of the show, probably not too surprising.
Like you, I’m into the musical adventure this band takes us on, even if its outside my comfort zone and takes some work to wrap my head around.
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Ha! I was next to a guy N3 and he was kinda skeptical before the show, but by like song 3 he was going hard and when there was a pause at one point he said “Well, I guess I’ve gotta go the the K Bridge show now, right??”
After I did a couple of the Euro rave shows I left wondering if I actually like them more than rock shows! So hard for me to make a call, but to answer your question I hope they continue to pepper them in and given how clearly amped at least Stu & Joey are on the table stuff I don’t think they’ll go away completely for a while.
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I still need to listen to N4 to see how it compares. But I kinda wonder if the first couple of N3 songs were a little too slow/noodly to get people engaged easily. There were a few points where I wasn’t sure what song we were on. 
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I find myself wondering the same about the Orchestral shows. Will those ever return? It’s fun that they have 3 weapons they can throw into Residencies now though. Orchestra show, Acoustic Show, Rave Show?
They seem to always do right by their back catalogue (except Vegemite), so I think they’ll be continuing all the various show types over the years. Orchestra is the biggest asterisk though as the planning for that seems silly, so I dunno if we get that until a cycle for the next Orchestral infused album if that ever happens?
Eager to see how they choose to do it one way or the other.
Also, I’m in the camp of someone that doesn’t normally listen to EDM, but that Night 4 live stream under the bridge was bonkers. Enough that I find myself putting AM on more often after watching it.
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Yeah, the orchestral shows were a whole different level of pre-planning and organization. It seems like those are less likely than the rave/Nathan shows shows to happen again.
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IIRC one of the (p)doom emails said something like “other cities asked us about orchestra shows but this is what we’re doing right now so get in while you can.” Kind of a signal that they had no plans for more in the future IMO.
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To me, 6-7k on a Sunday night is pretty decent showing. Plus factor in after a 3 night run, that was announced maybe 5-6 weeks before the show, when all of us who traveled long distances (ie purchased flights, and booked lodging) and scheduled our time off, Sunday night was not even possible.
Also was shocked people didn’t like N3, but I love techno.
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At the Melbourne orchestra show last year they said it was their last one.
It’s a great question about the rave shows, don’t think they’ll move onto the next thing quickly considering the investment into all the gear. I imagine Alien metal will take a little bit to grow on some people similar to the table itself.
Ngl took me way too long to realise that the ‘Aus fall run’ were referencing the shows in October being it’ll be our spring
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Ngl took me way too long to realise that the ‘Aus fall run’ were referencing the shows in October being it’ll be our spring
Oh snap good point! So easy for me to forget about that consideration, too. “AUS October Run” it is!
They may taper off as new albums roll out, but I don’t think Stu and Joey can “un-scratch” that itch now that it’s out there, lol. The full Nathan sets are a full blown rash at this point!
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I think the Orchestra run was a one off, it’s a ton of work to coordinate and plan, plus it means they need to pre-plan the setlist and basically not deviate. Maybe someday they’ll do another Orchestra tour but my guess would only be if they made another album. Also the band must make less money because those tickets didn’t cost more than normal tix (at least not significantly) but they had WAY more musicians to pay - it was certainly a labor of love.
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I really hope they keep happening.
FH3 was increíble and I had never been to a show like that before (only watched some of Europe tour).
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But are you old enough to have seen the Dread Zeppelin documentary?
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I would be surprised if they discontinued rave shows at least in the near future, although could see them scale it back to just part of the show.
I’m a big fan of the 3 night runs, and love the idea of having a rave night one of the three.
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This may be a warped thought for this particular thread, but I’m also looking forward to when we get rock/hybrid versions of Level 5 and Alien Metal, similar to what they did with Gilgamesh at Forest Hills on night 2.
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Totally agree, electronic songs moving out of that space for the first time is a most welcome addition. Both metal versions of Extinction from FoV and FH blew me away.
Nearly danced my glasses right off my face during those!
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I’ve enjoyed electronic music since we just called it techno/house/d&b/etc so maybe I’m an outlier, but I really liked FH night 3.
With that said, as much fun as a rave show would be, part of what makes gizz a great live band IMO is their unpredictability. I’ll go into a show expecting some mix of metal/synth/microtonal/prog/boogie songs. It’s anyone’s guess what order those genres will appear and then you’ve got a variety of lead vocalists.
They don’t seem to fall into patterns like the dead: alternating jerry and bobby songs, ballads and shorter songs in 1st set, jammier songs in the 2nd, eventually drums>space becomes a 2nd set fixture, etc.
I really enjoy not knowing what’s coming next and just riding the vibes the band is creating.
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