Field of Vision II in Buena Vista, Colorado is by far, the best music festival of 2026.
Field Of Vision is the first large festival in the USA to feature Angine De Poitrine the polka dot aliens from Quebec. Their other worldly, presence was right at home amongst this diverse and artistic group of musicians. The Festival included cutting edge acts King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard, Blood Incantation, La Luz, Spacemoth, Earth Tongue and many more. The festival was special due to the scenery, the scale, the involved and excited attendees and the hand-selected music that is some of the most exciting rock music in the underground today.
Angine De Poitrine was the most hyped band at the festival with their outrageous polka dot costumes. On Friday they played to 12,000 people. Their performance was executed with alien precision and a strange atmosphere of playful extraterrestrial cartoonishness.
Angine De Poitrine is where we will begin the article followed by the ever important King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard who produced the festival. Then the supporting acts Blood Incantation, Lisa Bella Donna,La Luz, Spacemoth, Earth Tongue, W.I.T.C.H., and many more to follow. We will cover the festival start to finish, so join me for a journey into the best festival of the year.
Angine De Poitrine Introduction
Angine De Poitrine are performers from Quebec who broke into world consciousness after a KEXP live session was posted on Youtube drawing 20 million views. They played their first ever concerts in the USA starting in mid-August 2026 meaning, very few have seen this out-of-this-world band live.
Angine De Poitrine are space-time travelers and attempt to communicate with the Human Race through music. Their on stage “banter” is both baffling and hilarious. They speak in an alien language and attempt to get the crowd to perform specific actions which is widely lost on the audience leaving this author to laugh out loud again and again.
Their signature costumes feature guitarist and bassist Khn De Poitrine with a black polka dot bodysuit. Their feet and hands white with black dots and a large head piece that is a upside-down pyramid which is white with black dots and a light-up golden triangle in the center. Their face is masked with a big long nose and golden dollar signs over their eyes. Khn’s hair is long and golden colored rope like braids that match his silly chin hairs.
Khn plays a custom built instrument, it is a double-neck guitar with a white body coated in black dots and a black pick-guard. The guitar is microtonal which takes some explaining. A standard guitar has 12 notes per octave and Angine De Poitrine’s guitar has 24 per octave. In other-words, twice as many frets as a standard guitar. The bass section of the double neck guitar is much the same custom built with microtonal frets as well.
The real magic comes from the pedal board that Khn uses for looping and effects. A looper is used constantly in every Angine De Poitrine song. Loopers capture a section of music and have it repeat over and over so a musician can play another musical line over top. Khn will make a bass or guitar riff and loop it, then place a new layer over the top to build the songs. The advanced looper he uses allows for multiple loops controlled individually so he can start and stop and re- record any loop at will or even layer loops to infinity.
Klek De Poitrine is the drummer with a white sack top with a huge head piece, a long flopping nose and a 70s android trash can head in black with white polka dots . The drums define one of the signature aspects for their unique music namely their mathematical rhythm which features frequent changes to time signatures giving the music a fractured asymmetric rhythmic structure that is mind-blowing.
Friday August 14th Angine De Poitrine
Friday, August 14th, Angine De Poitrine hit the stage at 5:30 PM sharp. The mass of people moved through the bottlenecked security check point in great anticipation. Angine was ready after a day of great music which included Stu Mackenzie of King Gizzard playing a solo modular synth set, Shana Cleveland of La Luz, Primitive Ring and Lisa Bella Donna the queen witch of Moog.
Their presence was immediately felt as the strange spectacle of their otherworldly costumes entered the consciousness of the festival. The audience dressed the part with bootleg merch mashing up Angine De Poitrine and King Gizzard logos and colors. The background of the stage, the musician and the fans were in black and white with dots. Flying black and white dice inflatables flew through the air in place of the traditional beach ball. This was the most densely packed performance of the festival and it felt monumental.
Angine De Poitrine waddled onto the stage, grunting and squeaking in their alien language. They stretched their arms, did some twists and growled/grunted at each other. Once warmed-up their hands raised to their foreheads creating a triangle with a loud alien growl and the triangle on Khn‘s head flashing gold. The audience did the same raising their hands and cheering. This seemed to be indicating it was time for the transmission of Angine‘s non-AI music.
The bass line and drums kicked on and the controlled insanity began with the song ‘Angor’ from the album, Vol.II. The duo was razor sharp with their playing raising chants of “holy shit” from the audience. The audience was moving in new unusual ways with little cohesion as the beat was always disjointed. There were many who simply stood and stared in disbelief at the experimental math-rock spectacle. Others were inventing new unusual dances that could find a home in a Star Trek episode.
Between songs the band would attempt to communicate with the audience often with little success. This miscommunication was both funny, confusing and wholly entertaining. These space-time travelers require water and they drink through a comically long straw to reach behind the large masks and draw laughter from the audience. This feeling of mime-like humor was paired with the complex and interesting music helped to create an atmosphere on stage that in one-of-a-kind.
Angine De Poitrine closed out the legendary set with ‘Sherpa’ from the Vol.1 album. This song was a festival highlight and brought the audience to new heights. The song had more layers then the album version allowing for an off-the-cuff feel that burned out with noisy guitar solos. This was the most experimental part of the set as the live guitar fizzled and feedback into itself.
Angine was greatly embraced by the herd of King Gizzard fans. Angine De Portrine was not the first popular band to make microtonal music. King Gizzard released their first microtonal math-rock album in 2017 with Flying Microtonal Banana and Secret Chiefs 3 have been playing similar music live for some time now. King Gizzard was a heavy inspiration for the concept of Angine De Portrine and likely contributed to their appearance at the FOV II. The two audiences seem like a match made in heaven.
King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard (KGLW): Introduction
KGLW is the most eclectic band in music today and they are the organizers of Field Of Vision Music Festival in Buena Vista, Colorado. They have released 28 full-length albums with the first released in 2012. They are a live band and are consistently changing their setlist and reinterpreting their songs live on stage. At FOV (Field Of Vision) 2025 they played 68 unique songs over the course of three nights totaling more than 9 hours of music and several of these songs were over 20 minutes in length. FOV II 2026 is similar and they had very few repeat songs from 2025. FOV II featured 61 songs from KGLW played over the 9 hours of the 3 nights. We will break-down the setlist and what was special about each night after the introduction.
KGLW are a psychedelic garage rock band that delights in progressive rock, analog synth and heavy metal. They are constantly pushing themselves to explore new and interesting avenues of music. These new avenues of music include microtonal music inspired by Turkish music, fully modular electronic music heavily influenced by early krautrock and finger blistering progressive thrash metal.
To dive deep into the universe created by KGLW one needs to spend hours combing through recordings and diving deep into the nuances of their music. Many of their albums are themed by genre and by a particular aspect of music theory that they are exploring, it’s nerdy stuff when dissected and endlessly interesting. To further complicate their discography there is an overwhelming number of live bootleg vinyl which contain much of their best material as they are at their best when performing live.
The band encourages and supports these bootleg live albums by making soundboard recordings from the live shows publicly available and allowing anyone to download, mix, master and manufacture physical media. This has created a brilliant marketing ecosystem where by fans and any record label can release live King Gizzard bootlegs keeping the bands name constantly in the new releases section of the record store and giving fans an avenue to profit from their obsession. It also gives fans the opportunity to own records of the shows they attend creating a snowball of enthusiasm for the next live show. Talk about buy-in.
The entire festival was live streamed for free on King Gizzard TV on YouTube. Fans from the world-wide audience could tune in and join the festivities and hop on the “couch tour.”
It should be mentioned that one band Etran De L’Air was unable to play the fest due to a travel ban put in place in 2026 by the United States Government blocking all Nigerian’s from entering the United States. Moktar was also unable to attain a visa to come to the USA and Die Spitz had to cancel due to injury.
What is Field of Vision?
Located in Buena Vista, CO at Meadow Creek Ranch which is just minutes from residential Buena Vista and from the quaint idyllic mountain downtown. Buena Vista is at 8,000 ft about twice that of Denver. It is a small mountain town with 3,000 residents nestled deep in high-country of the Rocky Mountains nestled in the Sawatch and Sangre De Christo Mountain range with 14,000 foot peaks in the surrounding area. It has some of the countries most beautiful views and most relaxing hot springs. This area of Colorado is known for being where UFOs, meditation retreats, shamanic ceremonies, Buddhist temples, and a variety of smaller religious sects and cults thrive. This area of the country is known for the outdoors but also for being a spiritual new age styled place of power.
Meadow Creek Ranch only does two weekends of music each year. As an independent venue it is free of corporate BS but also lacks some of the infrastructure that could be very helpful. The beautiful property has four camp grounds for tents, RV parking and glamping domes. There is a pond with a DJ booth for floating and listening to music through the warm sunny afternoons. The Castle stage is new this year and had great performances on the rustic crumbling castle turret and strange barns. The main stage is in its own special area packed in drink and food stands and plenty of room to picnic, dance, dip into the creek or swing on a hammock. The main stage has capacity for more then 12,000 people.
King Gizzard fans have a market place called Mirage City with bootleg King Gizzard merch. The band allows fans use their artwork to make bootleg shirts, posters, hats, stickers and many other goods. In 2026 Mirage City was more then double the number of vendors with hundreds of unique t-shirts, posters, stickers, action figures, and so much more. This year there was also a significant amount of Angine De Poitrine bootleg merch as well. This change is significant as it suggests Field Of Vision bootleg merch that blends bands is now available.
PDoom Records, KGLW’s record label, had a pavilion with a deep selection of the full discography of KGLW records, live recordings, test pressings, limited edition mutants and the Field Of Vision II compilation with all profits going to a Buena Vista Trails Preservation nonprofit. They had the new King Gizzard album Alien Metal available before the pre-sale went live, a gift to their dedicated fans.
The Music Festival Band By Band, For A Total FOV Geek Out
I was able to see 21 bands between the two stages and the performances were incredible and seemed curated to my taste. This was with no doubt the top two music festivals I have every attended. I purchased my tickets in December of 2025 in the first minutes of their release and looked forward to it all year.
Thursday Night (Early Arrival)
I flew into Denver international the Monday before the show to enjoy the mountains and adjust to altitude. I gathered provisions and headed into the fest with early entry on Thursday. The majority of attendees were in the park by the end of Thursday night. The only entertainment was a debut listening party for the new King Gizzard Album Alien Metal and the abundant shopping with the bootleg vendors at Mirage City. At 11pm that night the Alien Metal album was released on streaming and a shout out went through the camp, “Alien Metal is up!”. I threw on my headphone and gave it a listen.
Friday August 14th:
Friday morning started off with huge lines for the official merch tent and the PDoom Record store. Everyone needed a copy of the new album Alien Metal and an official poster. I jumped in line for the record store and had in-depth conversations about guitar, amps, guitar pedals, music and organic farming. This was the most entertaining wait-in-line I have every had.
I got through the line just in time to put away my vinyl and see Stu Mackenzie, King Gizzard’s band leader guitarist and singer. He performed at The Castle Stage with a solo modular synth rave set. This opening set was well attended and the area was packed with dancing fools.
Shana Cleveland was the next solo performer. She is a talented singer, song-writer and vocalist. It was an enchanting set with beautiful finger-picked acoustic guitar and plenty of songs about her love of California, a love we both share. This set was a great teaser for the La Luz set to come on Saturday night as she is the main songwriter in La Luz.
Friday’s last morning set on The Castle Stage was the new LA garage rockers Primitive Ring. These guys really rocked and were the first high energy rock set of the festival. Fuzzy warm guitars blasted out with dual vocals to drive the choruses home. The audience seemed mostly unaware of the bands music but they made a huge impression. This band has been covered by POW Magazine in our newsletters over the last year, so I knew what to expect and they were on my list of must see bands for the weekend.
Primitive Ring overlapped with Lisa Bella Donna on the main stage stage so I regretfully missed her synth witchcraft on the main stage speakers but would later see her in a late night set on Sunday. Likewise, I needed food and a moment to rest. I missed Upchuck but could hear their high energy punky sound in the distance.
Friday Main Stage:
Angine De Poitrine was next and it seemed every single person in the venue flooded toward to main stage at the same time making entry to the main stage area unusually slow, this was one of the downfalls of an indie fest. I was anxious to see Angine. I already discussed their set above, it rocked.
After that Die Spitz cancelled so Angine De Poitrine had an extra 10 minutes of time and then was the all mighty King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard.
King Gizzard Friday, August 14th, 2026
King Gizzard opened Field Of Vision II with guitars a blazing! The distortion was ripping as they played four heavy metal songs. ‘Extinction’ from the album Silver Cord was rearranged from an electronic synth song to a heavy metal rocker. Heavy chugging ripped with some classic 80s trash metal sounds and riffs inspired by prog rock bands like Tool. This was all to the audiences delight.
The crowd on Friday night was level 10 excited and rocking and singing every word. KGLW had their longest ever live performance gap making their fans wait 10 months before this show. The band moved into ‘Mars For The Rich‘ off the album Infest The Rats Nest album, a stoner rock track about the rich destroying the Earth and creating ideal communities on Mars for themselves… The crowd goes nuts chanting, “Mars For The Rich, Earth For The Poor” touching on a repeated storytelling and science “fiction narrative” that runs through much of King Gizzard’s music.
They did a few heartfelt older tunes with ‘Am I In Heaven’ which was a big highlight as it is great song. The band took a moment to switch to a microtonal guitars and went through several Turkish inspired microtonal songs letting Angine De Poitrine fans know King Gizzard has been on the microtonal for a long time now.
King Gizzard had an electronic portion of their set and they have named their synthesizer ‘Nathan’. Following a lively rendition of ‘Sleep Drifter’ from The Flying Microtonal Banana album they rolled out ‘Nathan’. The first synth song was ‘Magma’ normally a guitar rock song reinterpreted for synth.
The unbelievable hi-fidelity of the synth through the large PA is something that can only be experienced in-person. Watching the streamed audio it sounds like only a fraction of the sound translates to the recording. The bass is weak on the recording, the harmonic complexity is dulled and the vocoder sounds very different then the live performance. In-person the bass dropped with Earth rattling power, the smooth complex harmonic tones of the synth were rich, lush and a pleasure to listen to.
‘Magma’ hit like a ton of bricks the whole audience got down like a rave scene in a vampire movie. The grooves were deep, the vocoder vocals were layered and out-of-this-world. This song was mentioned through out the weekend as a highlight from the festival crowd.
The Friday night synth set was easily the best of the weekend. Following ‘Magma’ Ambrose (singer, keys) took over the vocals and went off with a new version of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ that weaved in lyrics and sections from ‘Presumptuous’, ‘Black Market Bargain’ and ‘The Grim Reaper’. This strange synth hip-hop section was sick, there is no other way to say it. Nobody saw it coming and it hit hard especially after ‘Magma’.
King Gizzard then debuted the live version of ‘Level 5’ and ‘Rapid Alpha Decay’ from the new Album Alien Metal. These were so good. The band has found a level of comfort with the synth that they had not achieved before. There is an incredible complexity to syncing six fully modular units live on-stage and performing. These instruments are somewhat unpredictable and the sounds and frequencies can take on a life of their own. It’s exceedingly difficult to control and King Gizzard crushed it on Friday and the other nights as well. I have no doubt some acid trippers in the audience contacted extraterrestrials during these Alien Metal songs.
The band rolled away the synth with the audience cheering, “Nathan, Nathan, Nathan!!!” The band took a hard musical turn to a nice indie garage rock track, ‘Let Me Mend The Past’. This one has some classic guitar solos from Joey and the wonderfully catchy vocal from Ambrose. The audience knew every word. The band slid into, ‘The Land Before Timeland’ and tied in quotes from ‘Iron Lung’. They improvised and came out into ‘Iron Lung’ proper which is an audience favorite. This combination of songs jammed together went on for over 35 minutes with quite beautiful verses and long dual guitar solos. These are songs which slow down and speed up with dynamic intensity and feel like the ultimate rock experience.
The set ended with 45 minutes of Nonagon Infinity widely considered one of the best garage psych prog albums of all-time. The series of songs flowed in a non-linear fashion jumping between various songs with ‘Robot Stop’ as the launch pad. This was highly energized and weaved in a bit of the songs ‘Cut Throat Boogie’, ‘Magma’, ‘Am I In Heaven’, ‘Extinction‘ and ‘Field Of Vision’.
This section highlights the bands ability to improvise and blend various songs together to create new live experiences for the fans. The Nonagon Infinity section had the audience going wild as it is a fan favorite album. Even the band was surprised with themselves. When the medley ended Ambrose exclaimed, “What the Fuck just happened?”.
‘The River’ was the closer from the album Quarters which is widely loved song amongst the crowd. full sing-a-longs with long jam sections. The band built up to ripping guitars that burst into heavy metal chugging which is out of character for a jam on ‘The River’. The band abruptly ended the set as the venue had a hard curfew and promised they would, “Finish it up tomorrow“.
King Gizzard Setlist:
Friday August 14th 2026
- Self-Immolate
- Extinction
- Mars For The Rich
- Predator X
- Am I In Heaven
- Stressin’
- Open Water
- Atraxia
- Honey
- Sleep Drifter
- Magma
- Smoke And Mirrors
- Level 5
- Rapid Alpha Decay
- Let Me Mend The Past
- The Land Before Timeland
- Iron Lung
- Robot Stop
- Cut Throat Boogie
- Robot Stop (Part 2)
- Big Fig Wasp
- The River
Friday Night the Castle Stage:
The Castle Stage kicked off with Angelica Garcia who I did not see but heard from a distance. I was resting up for the Blood Incantation ‘otherworldly set’.
Blood Incantation was on after 12 AM performing a rare synth set. They set-up a wide array of vintage synths and a huge gong. Their sound was impeccably beautiful ambiance, generated from the various synths and the gong was played to subtly ring out a wide range of frequencies from shimmering static like highs to deep drone. Eventually, the band kicked in the electric guitar and full drum kit. The music was new age with Pink Floyd guitars echoing distorted and melodic. This was an amazing and unfortunately short lived set as the set up took awhile due to the complex number of instruments and the decibel limits on the late night stage.
The night ended with a dance set from Nikki Nair which I also missed to catch some sleep.
Friday Schedule:
Phantom Island
1-3PM DJ at the Phantom Island Pond
The Castle
12 – 12:40PM Stu Mackenzie
2-2:40PM Shawna Cleveland of La Luz
3-3:40PM Primitive Ring
Main stage
3:20-4PM Lisa Bella Donna
4:20 – 5PM Up Chuck
6 – 6:55PM Angine De Poitrine
7:50PM UTE Welcome to the Territory
8-11PM King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
The Castle Stage
11:30 – 12:10AM Angelica Garcia
12:30 – 1:10AM Blood Incantation Other worldly set
1:30 – 3AM Nikki Nair
Activities:
10AM Acid yoga
11:30AM Drag Me Outside Hike w/ Efemmera Gendera & Thepsis D. Light
12PM Ute tribal welcome to territory
12-1:30PM Micro Retreat
2PM Drag Me Outside Hike W/Efemmera Gendera & Thepsis D. Light
Saturday August 15th:
I awoke in the morning at my normal time to a sunny day in the high mountains surrounded by the most beautiful mountain scenery. I doubled down on coffee and got a veggie breakfast burrito. Decided to take a bath in the ice cold mountain creek and got my pack ready for the day.
I brought my blanket to The Castle Stage and laid down on the ground for Cavs Gong Bath. Cavs is the drummer for King Gizzard. He brought out the gong and a few chiming drone percussive instruments and blasted Earth shaking gong over the PA. It was a blissful, wonderful way to set up for the day. I missed Lisa Bella Donna and The Jonathan Tourbin Dance Off because I was making so many new friends and got wrapped up in endless music conversation.
I headed to the main stage around 5PM to catch the end of The Folk Bitch Trio whose gentle acoustic sounds carried wonderfully over the grounds. They were followed by W.I.TC.H. a Zambian Zam rock band. Their funky vibes were fun, uplifting and skillful. The rhythms were easy to dance to and the guitars and vocals were playful and experienced.
Blood Incantation was up next. Blood Incantation is one of the best bands out of the Denver death metal scene and their album Absolute Elsewhere was a instant classic. That album surprised many fans as it was death metal / kraut rock / psychedelic album. Many of the people at the fest had heard of Blood Incantation but didn’t feel they were a good fit in the lead up to the festival. Those people had no idea what they were about to experience and most of them were totally won over by the live set.
Blood Incantation is a legendary band in the making and Absolute Elsewhere will be remembered for all-time as one of the greatest metal albums. They played the full album front to back. Absolute Elsewhere consists of two songs ‘The Stargate’ and ‘The Message’ each over 20 minutes in length. They crushed their set the death metal riffs, blasting Pink Floyd like guitar solos. Their synth sections were very psychedelic in the 70s krautrock way. The mosh pit was moving non-stop. The guy next to me at the end was screaming, “That is how a guitar is meant to be played” along with other explicit language. Their set was incredible and that day legends were written in the high country mountains as ‘The Stargate’ opened and ‘The Message’ was received.
Throughout the rest of the festival I heard person, after person exclaim that Blood Incantation was the act that surprised them most with many expressing that it was their favorite non-King Gizzard set.
King Gizzard Saturday August 15th
King Gizzard took the stage for night 2 after Blood Incantation lit the place on fire, figuratively speaking as it was fire season and we were under a stage 2 fire ban.
KGLW come out right into the last section of ‘The River’ to complete the last song started the prior night. The Gizz was playing early songs for the first portion of the set with high energy garage rock tracks like, ‘Black Tooth’ and ‘Dead Beat’ from the rarely heard Willoughby’s Beach EP of 2011. These songs hit hard with Osees like energy and we all went nuts in the crowd.
Next up was ‘Crumbling Castle’ and ‘Fourth Colour’ from one of their finest albums, Polygondwanaland from 2017. This set of songs are always played together and are progressive rock masterpieces. ‘Crumbling Castle’ is a guitar lovers dream with poly-rhythmic riffs, catchy runs and harmonized lead lines. The song is about a castle that crumbles largely due to environmental collapse again reaching back to their science fiction and fantasy story telling typical of their music.
After this, they ripped hard with ‘Organ Farmer’ from Infest The Rats Nest album released 2019. They played ‘Road Train’ for the first time since 2019 then brought out Jay Weinberg to take the drum kit for ‘Hell’. Jay Weinberg is a former and long time drummer for big stadium bands like Slipknot. ‘Hell’ was rocking as Jay is a really heavy punchy drummer which kept the song running at 100 miles per hour.
A few songs later they rolled out Nathan the massive synth setup for the boogie with ‘Muddy Water’ an older song that usually is on traditional rock arrangement but today was a playful dance party on synth. The light-hearted boogie smoothly transitioned into ‘Perihelion’, a metal song converted into synth. The vibe became very trippy and the intensity grew. A person online commented that the live stream made it look like the audience was dancing hard for the whole electronic set. The fact is everyone around me was dancing hard and having a great time, the whole time. The intensity of the audience involvement was not a camera trick but a fact.
The Gizz played the new song ‘Alien Metal’ and ‘Kill For The Steel’ which brought deep grooves, these were both live debuts. ‘Alien Metal’ repeats “Water, Fire” and had Joey jump off the synth and chug on distorted electric guitar. It is always a rare pleasure to see the band blend the guitar with their electronic music.
The synth rolled away and ‘Alter Beast’ suite from the album, Murder Of The Universe. This was no joke guitar playing. The running riffs between the various guitar players was astounding in strange time signatures with a high level of precision, tone and energy. There are moments where all three guitarists Joey, Stu and Cookie are harmonizing with fast running lines. This amazing piece of heavy prog rock extended for over 25 minutes encapsulating four songs in a seamless composition.
Another live debut followed. I mention this because the live debuts are much like Pokemon cards for the Gizz fans. They are always trying to see new songs live and on Saturdays show we got three debuts. This time its the musically complex song ‘Gliese 710’ from the 2022 album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava. It started with jazzy chords and vocal and grew into wailing guitars with dueling lead lines. The music got very heavy with crunching stoner wah wah riffs before cooling back into its chill jazzy groove.
‘Hypertension’, also released in 2022 on the album Laminated Denim is largely improvisational around specific music theory concepts that have an extended run time. ‘Hypertension’ is a journey through calm waters that grow into something cosmic and intimidating. The speeding guitar solos on this song were astounding. The lyrics, guitars, balance of the bands arrangements are not to be missed.
How can a band end a set like Saturday night? They decided to play ‘Head On / Pill’ from Float Along – Fill Your Lungs from 2013. This is a great song widely loved by fans for its vocal lines and catchy melodic guitar lines. The whole crowd was screaming the words by this point in the set the energy had reached a ecstasy of over stimulation and the friendly happy group sing along that was ‘Head On’ was a communal experience. However, the band could not finish the song before curfew and they will never rush a song. What happened is at one point it just came to a stop with Stu saying, “We will finish this one tomorrow! Love you! And There is more music at The Castle Stage”.
King Gizzard Setlist
Saturday August 15th 2026
The River
Wah Wah
Black Tooth
Dead-Beat
Dirt
Crumbling Castle
The Fourth Colour
Organ Farmer
Road Train
Hell
The Bitter Boogie
Muddy Water
Perhelion
Alien Metal
Kill For Steel
Alter Me I
Altered Beast II
Alter Me II
Altered Beast IV
Gliese 710
Trapdoor
Hypertension
Head On / Pill
Saturday Night The Castle Stage
Saturday was a music lovers dream and it didn’t end on the main stage there was more music on the second stage, The Castle! The Castle stage opened up with a second set from W.I.T.C.H. This second set felt more intimate and settled. Their funky grooves and guitar lines were on point. People were psyched and dancing after Gizzard.
La Luz came out next and that they had a new line-up. The bassist and second guitar / keyboardist were new. This line-up change was highly positive as La Luz played the best set I have seen them play in nearly a decade. Shana Cleveland out front seemed comfortable and felt like her stylish cool factor was back in its’ power. The vocal harmonies were clean, the band was bumping and the music had a new energy that felt great after the day of heavy hard rocking. Shana even took liberties and extended her guitar solos throwing extra psychedelic vibes into the set. I was highly impressed with La Luz and will not be missing their set the next time they are in town.
.Vril ended the night with an EDM set that was both upbeat and cooling. I caught about 20 minutes before my legs called me to bed.
Saturday Schedule:
Phantom Island
12-3PM DJ Boogie Boudreaux
The Castle
12 – 12:40PM Buena Vista High School Marching Band
1- 1:40PM Cavs Gong Bath
2- 2:40PM Lisa Bella Donna
2:45 – 4PM Jonathan Tourbin’s soul Claps & Dance Off
Main Stage
4:20 – 5PM Folk Bitch Trio
5:30 – 6:10PM W.I.T.C.H.
6:35 – 7:20PM Blood Incantation
8-11PM King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard
The Castle
11:30 – 12:10AM W.I.T.C.H.
12:30 – 1:10AM La Luz
1:30 – 3AM .Vril
Activities:
9AM Butterfly 3K Run (yes, it was widely attended)
10AM Acid Yoga
11:30AM Drag Me Outside Hike w/ Efemmera Gendera & Thepsis D. Light
1-2PM Jello Biafra Rant
2PM Drag Me Outside Hike W/ Efemmera Gendera & Thepsis D. Light
Sunday August 16th
Sunday! Unbelievable that there was another entire day of music.
Spacemoth was one of my must see bands and they were kicking it off at the early hour of noon. They sounded like a main stage band much like La Luz the night before. La Luz and Spacemoth share a band member and have been on a short tour together. Spacemoth blended guitar, synth, bass and vocals. Many of the band members were moving between multiple instruments. They were well rehearsed and enthusiastically received by the audience. Their upbeat psychedelic folk synth rock was well written produced and performed. This was a set that exceeded my already high exceptions.
I missed LA songwriter, Will Sprott and Jay Weinberg‘s drum clinic. I needed to save my legs for Earth Tongue and King Gizzard.
Earth Tongue opened up the Main Stage to an enthusiastic crowd much of which knew the lyrics to their songs. The dungeon themed duo come at the audience hard with heavy stoner riffs and melodic runs that bring to mind sections of King Gizzards early days. Their start stop feel and the vocal breaks like on ‘Silver Eye’ were embraced whole heartedly by the audience bring forth chants of “Holy Shit“. It seemed the crowd loved the heavier sets in the fest. Earth Tongue is from New Zealand and released their album Dungeon Vision this year. Earth Tongue gave us a special treat by debuting a new songs that is currently only available on the Field Of Vision II Compilation charity vinyl.
Destrends brought the modern UK punk sound to the fore. I was again saving myself for King Gizz by chilling in a hammock to the side of the stage by the creek while the mosh pit went crazy for this band. This one of the wonderful features of Meadow Creek Ranch.
Pattie Gonia was next and brought drag to the masses with song, dance, performance, talks on capitalism, inclusions and some humanist political messaging. Their set was filled with energy, camp, humor and audience participation. Pattie Gonia was so San Francisco!
King Gizzard Sunday August 16th
The final night of King Gizzard came quickly. The weekend had so much music, wonderful conversations and happiness. Now the end is in sight, my legs are sore but I went hard for Gizz start to finish all three nights.
Their set opened where the prior night left off with the second half of ‘Head On / Pill’ followed by another early song, ‘Sea Of Trees’. The ‘Head On / Pill‘ contained sections from ‘Sea Of Trees‘, ‘Dripping Tap‘ and ‘Hypertension‘. When ‘Dripping Tap‘ riff was played the audience exploded but the band wasn’t not going to play it this year because it had been played last year; its a whole thing, ask me about it later. ‘Head On / Pill‘ had the guitars soaring to riveting heights.
The guys next broke out the microtonal guitars. Did I mention they were all cross dressed in drag? As Sunday was a FOV tradition, Drag Night that had the band and fans in costumes. They played ‘Anoxia’ and ‘Doom City’ from Flying Microtonal Banana album. The Turkish styled psychedelic garage rock was replete with wah-wah filtered scream and tones. The dual vocals carried with meaning and the energy of ‘Doom City’ was infectious. The echoing chorus with the band singing, “Dooooom Cii-tyyyy” get the crowd singing along. The song breaks from running riffs to heavy doomy wah riffs. ‘Minimum Brain Size‘ ended with Joey screaming, “Fuck that manosphere shit” revealing some of the meaning behind the song. The last microtonal psych rocker was a surprise from Sketches of Brunswick East arranged with a microtonal edge, ‘The Book’.
One hour into the set ‘Nathan’ the indomitable synth was rolled onto the stage. Sunday King Gizz went slow, long and liquid deep on the Nathan electronic set. Starting with an improvisation that lead to or was based on ‘Slow Jam 1’ to ‘Ice V’, to ‘Slow Jam 1’. This was a slow grooving jam the synth sounded ‘out of this world’ amazing in-person; truly one of the biggest sounding instruments I have heard. The synth section on Sunday was the most chill and wide open section of music during Field Of Vision II.
The EDM started to pulse with deep bass and build up the dance party when suddenly the voice of Han-Tyumi the AI robot who tells his story of wanting to feel and be human and ultimately reaches singularity and becomes the murder of the universe. Murder of The Universe is normally on rock band instruments but Sunday it was wild fertile synth. They synthed out on Nathan for a full hour. During that time they debuted two songs from the newly released album Alien Metal with ‘Sapience‘ and ‘Superheavy, Supercritical’ which despite sections with heavy beats felt very cooling and chill.
The chill bled into the first synth version ever of ‘Hell’s Itch’ from the album Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms And Lava. The song took on a indie rock / synth sound that was soothing. Stu started playing some flute with it and the synth seemed to mimic his playing.
They brought out the heavy metal flying V guitars and we all knew we were in for an extended finale after the restful music. The Gizz, ever generous, played a first ever heavy metal guitar version of ‘Gilgamesh’. ‘Gilgamesh’ is from the 2023 electronic album, The Silver Cord. The metal version had great energy, heavy riffs and wailing lead lines never heard before. The lead guitars had a middle eastern vibe as through the ancient peoples of the Assyrian empire were entering the venue with their power.
Finally, a song from the amazing album, Petro Dragonic Apocalypse from 2023. This is King Gizzard’s progressive thrash metal album. ‘Dragon’ is 11 minutes long and has fast groovy guitar riffs blistering solos, latin vocals that seem to summon an ancient force. The double bass and the 80s styled metal guitar riffs epically bringing the images of dragon, castles and destruction to life.
‘The Great Chain Of Being‘ was next and that song hit so hard with Sleep styled stoner riffs. This is surely the best they ever played, ‘The Great Chain Of Being’. The audiences heads were banging, hair whipping, mosh pit whirling. The energy was as high as at anytime during the weekend.
The last stanza of the show was designed for Joey to show that his guitar solos can be some of the best in the world with big stadium tones. ‘Ambergris’ started off this last section with its smooth chords and Joey’s clean vocals. ‘Ambergris‘ is from the album Omnium Gatherum. This led into the classic song, ‘Work This Time’ from 2014 album Oddiments. Unlike the album version the live arrangement has an extended classic rock guitar solo from Joey. This guitar solo has to be seen to be believed. He plays with so much emotion and feel. The song cuts back removing all the instrumentation to the soft gentle strumming at the center of the verse and chorus.
It all came to an end with the song, ‘Field Of Vision’ which shares its title with the music festival and can be heard on the album B741. The crowd was all in chanting “Field Of Vision” and “I am being a silly, I am being a Silly Billy!” Through the end of the set. A great time to be alive.
This festival will be long remembered by all who attended as it was one of the best music experiences imaginable.
King Gizzard Setlist
Sunday August 16th 2026
Pill
Sea Of Trees
Anoxia
Doom City
Minimum Brain Size
The Book
Slow Jam 1
Ice V
Slow Jam 1 (part 2)
Murder Of The Universe
Sapience
Superheavy, Supercritical
Hell’s Itch
This Thing
Gilgamesh
Dragon
The Great Chain Of Being
Ambergris
Work This Time
Field Of Vision
Sunday Night The Castle
Lisa Bella Donna kicked off The Castle Stage with her electronic witchcraft. She and one other person had huge walls of modular synth and played cosmic, spacious, dark, witchy electronic music. Bella Donna completed the theme with a witches cackle in the middle of one of the songs that certainly was heard at a great distance. The set was really good and brought a deeper appreciation for synth.
Lastly, the highly anticipated set from Bullant Joey’s rave solo project. Joey is from King Gizzard and thus had a huge draw even for 1 am on a Sunday to rave into the night.
Sunday Schedule:
Phantom Island
12-3PM DJ Jello Biafra
The Castle
12-12:40PM Space Moth
1-1:40PM Will Sprott
2-3PM Jay Weinberg’s Drum Clinic
Main Stage
3:20 – 4PM Earth Tongue
4:30- 5:10PM Destrends
5:40 – 6:20PM Pattie Gonia
7 – 10PM King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard
The Castle
10:30 – 11:10AM Lisa Bella Donna
11:30 – 2AM Bullant
Activities:
10AM Acid Yoga
10 – 11:30AM Micro Retreat
11-12PM Drag Story Hour w/ Davaivai and Jon Mall
12-12:30PM Skool Is A Drag lecture W/ Efemmera Gendera
12:45-1:15PM Davaivai & Jon Moll Performance
2:30 – 3PM Pattie Gonia Meet and Greet at Drag Camp
Field Of Vision II Conclusion
If you made it to this section of my article than the conclusion is simple, Field of Vision II was the best festival of 2026, hands down. KGLW has infiltrated your mind, consumed your playlists and there are a community of weirdos waiting to welcome you with alien like arms.
Mirage City Vendors (Bootleg Merch):
For those who can’t get enough KGLW, here is a list of the amazing Bootleg Vendors with links to their super cool merch!
Leftie Smudges (Poster artist)- https://leftiesmudges.com/
Thunder Shout – https://thunder-shout.com/
Stitchintab – Tabitha Martin (patchwork Apparel) –
Shanhorandraws – Shan Horan Poster / design artist Official Drag night poster – shanhpran.com/
shopericthepaintslinger – www.erichoins.com
Shauncey Fury – https://www.facebook.com/shaunceyfury
Will Rodriguez – 3d glasses – https://www.facebook.com/will.rodriguez.92372
Anything Records : https://www.anythingrecordsllc.com/
Zed Art – shirts blotters – https://www.instagram.com/midwest.zed
Larry Sneegas – Drink coozies-
Tucker Moore – Vinyl
Dan Rockwell – KGLW.org –
Steveyimstudios – insta posters – steveystudios.com
Soulsinetextiles – stickers – soulshinetextiles.myshopify.com
mysteriousmerch_art – poster
mindfuzz_music – posters
Moltenhousemedia – moltebhousemedia.bandcamp.com
nonagon.rugfinity – nonagonrugfinity.etsy.com
Primalsoupdesigns – primalsoupdesigns.com/shop
Brownyuio – poster
altered_tees – ko-fi.com/altered_tees/shop
feralkid_ – tees – www.aferalkid.com
Drewlandon –
crush_dyes –
firelighttroglodyte – firelighttroglodyte.com
Handyeumi
rolldicev – dice.bigcartel.com
muddywatericedyes – muddy-water-ice-dyes.bicartel.com
headhauntshow –
silvercourd – silvercourd.com
boejeam – joebeam.studio
gizzymotorugs – gizzymoto.bigcartel.com
s0ur_like_funky
thegardengabby – photography – garden-gabby-photo.square.site
phife.is.life – jreed.art
kraleidoscope_dyes
lost_seller – lostsellerdead.bigcartel.com/products
gardengoblin.goods – gardengoblin.bigcartel.com
xtrap999 – muntmachine.com
dirtysouthdead – dirtysouthdead.bigcartel.com
somesaxyart – somesaxyart.com
therealbootlegbastard – www.bootlegbastard.com
crawberts
nichemusicmemes – nichemusicmerch.printful.me
igloobudstiedye – igloobudtiedye.com
artdecho1985 – artdecho1985.etsy.com
pickledserpent – paigesilva.art
silentspritstudios –
calici_phlex – www.printsbyflex.com
vision.stains –
paisleyjensonstudios –
ganymede_princess
scoopeddodles
japamu88
kampgrounddesigns
chilledgreeseofficial – chilledgreese.com
picturemanbob
