I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: August 23, 2019] Tame Impala

I’ve liked Tame Impala since they first came out back in 2010.  I more or less pit them in a category with Dungen because of the jamming psychedelic sound and high-pitched vocals. I really enjoyed Innerspace and thought Lonerism was really good too.

When Kevin Parker (he makes the records himself and then tours with a live band) put out Currents in 2015, I thought it had some great songs and that the cover was quite an iconic and unforgettable image.

Then about a year ago I discovered that Tame Impala are HUGE!   People love them!  They even headlined Coachella.

How did this happen?  Not impugning the band in any way, but they are not a typical pop band.  Nor are they super catchy like Foo Fighters (another improbably popular band).  They’re even from Australia, for crying out loud.  But their fan base in the States is massive.

So I’d had them on my list to see for a while, but in recent years I’ve heard their live show is spectacular.  When I saw they were playing the Mann Center I was sure to get a ticket as close to the stage as possible.   And a couple days before the show it turned out the show sold out–that’s 14,000 people.  Wow.

So I was in Row N a little off to the side.  It’s clear that the people on the pit had the best vantage point and probably the best experience, although mine was pretty good too.

But there was the matter of getting there.  S. and I have complained about going to the Mann many times.  It’s a little further away than most of the Philly shows.  The venue is gorgeous and the sound is spectacular, so an extra ten minutes is not a big deal.  But then you remember that there is only one or two ways into the place and it’s off of a major highway. The bottleneck is insane.  Plus, they have recently upped the parking price to $25.

So I left with what I thought was plenty of time for the show.  But with traffic, I wound up getting into the parking area about 20 minutes after 8.  It took a few minutes to park and to walk to the gates only to find out that the Ticketmaster app wouldn’t load–I guess the signal was bad other people had the same problem. The guy at the gate told me I could get a ticket at the Box Office.  Which was great.  It was also relatively easy to do, but the line was huge.  So by the time I got through the gates, the opening band Velvet Negroni was just finishing up.  I have really no sense of anything they did.

It’s not the venue’s fault that the bathroom line was so long (I mean, 14,000 people), but I was really disappointed to find out just how many dudes and bros in backwards baseball caps were there.  I didn’t realize that that was the crowd who has gotten into them.

There were also more drugs than at a Phish show (security was pretty much nonexistent).  I heard he guy at the end of my row say, “what do you want?  We got everything.”  And that’s when I figured out that maybe that’s why Tame Impala is so popular.  The music and the visual combined to make things really trippy.

Obviously I’m a curmudgeon, and I know that.  I mean I was getting annoyed by people having fun around me, right?  What a jerk.  But I really dislike being around people who are stupid drunk/high.  And there were a lot of them.  So I was in a bit of a bummer mood when the band came on.

I actually had no idea he has being using a steady touring band for years.

• Kevin Parker – vocals, guitar (2007–present); synthesizer, keyboards (2009–present); bass guitar (2009–2013, 2019–present)
• Jay Watson – drums (2007–2012); synthesizer, guitar, backing vocals (2012–present)
• Dominic Simper – bass guitar (2007–2013, 2019–present); guitar, synthesizer, keyboards (2009–present)
• Julien Barbagallo – drums, backing vocals (2012–present)
• Cam Avery – bass guitar, backing vocals (2013–present), synthesizer (2019–present)

They came out to all kinds of lights and the taped strains of “List of People (To Try and Forget About).”   And the place exploded.  I was really blown away by the reaction which was bigger than just about any show I’ve been to.

I couldn’t believe that he opened with “Let It Happen,” which I assumed was the biggest hit he had, but he did and the crowd got even more crazy and then the confetti cannons went off and the whole place was pandemonium.  This was two confetti cannons in a week for me!

I was really impressed with how good the band sounded.  They replicated the sounds from the record perfectly.  Even that part where there music sort of fades out and gets all flat and weird was replicated perfectly.  It was really impressive.  So much so that a few times I wondered if they were actually playing live or if it was all prerecorded.  But they always did some jamming sections and extended areas that gave it a proper live feel.

Also impressive was Parker’s voice.  He has an incredible falsetto and he sings it was ease–he never seemed to be straining to hit any of the notes.

Currents has thirteen songs and they played eight songs from it (and a taped ninth song during the encore break), so they played basically the first 7 and last 2 songs.  I’m somewhat surprised they didn’t play  “Cause I’m a Man,” which was a pretty big hit, but whatever.

It’s also pretty strange to think that this tour (and Coachella) would be so huge given that this album is four years old and he hasn’t released anything since.  Except for two new songs released in March and April , the amusingly titled “Patience” and “Borderlines.”

I also love that he named a song “Led Zeppelin.”  They followed that with “The Moment.”

They interspersed songs from Lonerism, the second album between the Currents songs, so it was nice that it wasn’t the album straight through.

The older songs got huge responses too.  “Elephant” sounded amazing–the bass was absolutely huge.  There were even two people dressed like elephants (I saw online).

They only played one song, “Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind?” form their debut Innerspeaker which was slightly a bummer because there are so many good songs on that album, but there’s a lot of good songs on all the albums.

I don’t know if the show was more about the visuals but they were pretty stunning.  There was a giant screen and the visuals alternated between wonderfully triply shapes and videos of Parker singing.  The videos may be from music videos (I’m not sure), but whatever they were, they showed Parker singing and then weird things happening to his face.  In one video his head seemed to explode (but not in a gory way, just a trippy way), in another he got a third eye in the middle of his forehead (and then two more below his eyes).

Also, the band was shrouded in darkness for much of the show.  Not like they were hidden away, but that there were no lights on them–all attention was going to the screen and to Parker whenever he came out in front a bit.  There seemed to be a kind of rotating rainbow light that he was often stepping into, like during “Yes, I’m Changing.”

So even though I was annoyed at all the dudes at the show, assuming they were all there just for the intoxicants, I have to say everyone around me knew all the words to just about all of the songs.  They certainly knew more words than I did, so I will not be complaining about them any longer.

Except for the one guy a few rows ahead of me who was literally an entire head and neck taller than everyone else in the row.  I mean look at this picture (right), this guy was four rows in front of me and there are no heads anywhere near his.  How is someone that tall?  And he never left to get a beer, c’mon dude.

The set was a lot of fun, and Parker was a really enjoyable front man.  He often stepped to the front of the stage to play a loud bass or guitar line (he switched between these instruments throughout).  He had the whole guitar-god look down, even if what he was playing was often pretty simple.  It worked nevertheless, because the crowd was super into it.

He was also remarkably personable.  At one point someone held up a sign in the pit that said “At [some other show] you gave my brother a drum stick, can I have one to complete the set.”  Parker joked with him that he didn’t know which size stick he’d given to the guy’s brother and what if he gave him a 7B but his brother had a 5B.  But he did give him one and then joked that if it was the wrong size, to just give him a call.  Parker’s Australian accent isn’t very thick, which was mildly disappointing because I love a thick accent.  But you can’t hear it when he sings anyway.

I liked that he was playing songs from Currents, like “Eventually,” all through to the end.

The band left after fifteen songs–a solid hour and 45 minutes or so.

During the encore break they played “Mutant Gossip” over the loud speakers.  It sounded cool with the swirling trippy lights.  The “Mutant” part came when seemingly sporadically the song “Gossip” would be interrupted by the loudest bass sound I’ve ever felt and a bright white light.  I was frankly amazed that the venue’s speakers could tolerate such a sound.

They came back out for two more songs, “The Less I Know the Better” and more confetti during “New Person, Same Old Mistakes“.  The band left and the lights went berserk until they blacked out.  And that was the end.

It was a lot of fun.  I’ve been seeing a lot of reviews that imply this was the greatest show in the history of rock music.  I can’t say that, but I did rather enjoy myself.  Enough so that when I got to the parking lot and saw the bottle neck of people leaving I wasn’t bothered. I got out my book and sat chilling out for fifteen minutes before even getting into the line of cars (maybe that was the second hand smoke).  And even though it took another 25 minutes to go 2 miles, I was still chill by the time I got back on the highway and it was all smooth sailing from there.

SETLIST

1. List of People (To Try and Forget About) [tape] (B-side)
2. Let It Happen ©
3. Patience [new]
4. Led Zeppelin ⊗
5. The Moment ©
6. Mind Mischief ⊗
7. Nangs ©
8. Elephant ⊗
9. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards ⊗
10. Borderline [new]
11. Love/Paranoia ©
12. Yes I’m Changing ©
13. Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind? ⇑
14. Eventually ©
15. Apocalypse Dreams ⊗
    Encore:
16. Mutant Gossip [tape] © (but mutated)
17. The Less I Know the Better ©
18. New Person, Same Old Mistakes ©

© Currents (2015)
⊗ Lonerism (2012)
⇑ Innerspeaker (2010)