What an unusual proposition Tame Impala are. Kevin Parker, a genial Australian with a laissez-faire look that might be described as surfer rave Jesus, started out in the late 2000s as a one-man psychedelic rock band who pretended he didn’t play every note himself because he worried he wasn’t interesting enough to be a solo artist. Now he’s the platinum-selling producer called on to make a song with Diana Ross for the soundtrack to Despicable Me 3 and remix Elvis for Baz Luhrmann. His five-man live show, meanwhile, has become enough of a draw to headline Coachella in 2019 when Justin Timberlake dropped out, where they staged such an expensively brain-melting production that Parker actually lost money.
That show was intended to promote his fourth album, The Slow Rush, but it wasn’t ready yet (perfectionism is a beast). As soon as it finally came out, in February 2020, the pandemic put Tame Impala on ice. It was all too ironic for a record about how time always seems to pass too quickly or too slowly. This return to London, then, has been a long time coming. “I can’t tell you how fucking long I’ve waited for this,” he says with feeling. “I thought this day would never come.”
A Tame Impala show aspires to be a multisensory happening, somewhere between Pink Floyd and the Chemical Brothers. It’s more than a rock gig, yet not quite a rave. A playful introductory video features a pharmaceutical rep advertising a new drug which alters your perception of time. “Now would be a great time to take your Rushium,” she advises. The band-blurring visuals recall both 60s psychedelia and early 90s club culture. During the heady instrumental Gossip – ambient waves ruptured by a gnarly, busted-speaker buzz – a UFO-like rig descends, emitting a rainbow glow. It’s all very Rushium-friendly.
At first Tame Impala coast a little on vibes and spectacle but the energy spikes with the glam-rock ruckus of Elephant, as lasers fan out across the field like a peacock’s tail, and explodes during the Daft Punk-y colossus Let It Happen. “There’s a drop coming,” Parker says, endearingly carried away by his own song. “Are you ready?” Screams and confetti ensue. He could probably afford to lean harder into that quadrant of Tame Impala’s sound. While Breathe Deeper climaxes with an acidic blast from the Roland 303, the piano-house romp Patience and siren-blaring It Might Be Time are mystifyingly absent from a set that could use a bit more dancefloor muscle. The festival’s second-stage headliners Caribou, another band built around a soft-voiced bedroom producer, provide more moments of transcendent intensity.
What Tame Impala are doing is certainly working, though. Fans sing along to synthesiser riffs as lustily as if they were terrace chants. The Less I Know the Better, one of the dreamiest songs ever to exceed a billion streams, is greeted like an anthem. Parker’s meticulously produced headphone records scale up into something improbably spectacular when played loud in a field dazzled with lights.