mmg.com.au

Local musicians Michael Cavanagh and Eric Moore did what most musos only dream of when they performed at one of the world’s biggest travelling festivals on Sunday.

The ex-Deniliquin High School students got hot and sweaty performing with their seven-piece rock band, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, at the Melbourne leg of the acclaimed Big Day Out tour.

Playing on the Hot Produce Stage, the band belted out their best tunes, including Black Tooth and Willoughby’s Beach, in front of a massive crowd.

The band scored the festival slot after winning the Triple J Unearthed competition.

‘‘It was probably one of our best shows,’’ said Moore, who is the band’s percussionist and ‘hype-man’.

‘‘It was so hot inside the tent but everyone was dancing around and having a lot of fun.’’

A big crew of locals made the trip to Flemington Racecourse to catch the band play alongside rock legends Soundgarden, Kasabian, Noel Gallagher and The Living End.

Liam Walker, Michael Steyger, Ainslee Pitts, Matt Savage and Dom Moore (Eric’s younger brother) were just some of the locals faces I spotted lining the Hot Produce Stage. There were also some proud mums and dads.

‘‘It was good too see everyone come down and watch us,’’ Cavanagh, the band’s drummer, said.

‘‘We have a bit of local following and they always seem to get to a few of our gigs.’’

The band were also asked to support world-renowned artist Girl Talk on his Australian tour, which coincided with the Big Day Out.

‘‘We got to play at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on the Saturday night before flying into Melbourne to play Big Day Out on Sunday,’’ Cavanagh said.

‘‘Then on Tuesday we played with Girl Talk again at the Palace Theatre in Melbourne.’’

With members from Deniliquin and Anglesea, the band is now based in Melbourne and play a unique brand of ‘‘psychedelic surf rock’’ that is proving a hit.

Their singles, Black Tooth and Dead-Beat, are on constant rotation among independent radio stations Triple J and Triple R.

The band’s debut release, Willoughby’s Beach, has hit stores and has critics raving about the song named after one of Deniliquin’s iconic Edward River swimming holes.

One reviewer said: ‘‘The record is a brilliant exploration of surf rock, blues and psychedelia, all while retaining an incredible amount of energy and flow between songs. The album itself sounding like one blitzing live set that just happened to be recorded and cut up into individual tracks’’.

The album has featured heavily in the Triple J Magazine, as well as street press magazine Beat.

Readers of the online magazine Mess+Noise voted King Gizzard in at number two for the Best New Australian Act and number 10 for the Best Australian Live Act.

Perhaps the pinnacle of reviews thus far, however, is the band’s listing in the highly regarded The Music Network’s ‘Must See Bands of 2012’.

King Gizzard sits proudly between Triple J favourites San Cisco and American sensation Lana Del Rey as artists ‘‘you’d be insane to miss this year’’.

They rocked the Deniliquin Club in January last year and again in July as part of their Black Tooth tour that included stops in Melbourne, Geelong, Castlemaine, Adelaide and Sydney.

The Willoughby’s Beach EP is available on vinyl, CD and digital format and can be purchased through www.kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com.