Tame Impala returned to Rod Laver Arena for the second Melbourne show of their Deadbeat Tour; bringing a huge production, a career-spanning set and all the relaxed charm that has made Kevin Parker and the band such a consistently enjoyable live act.
Opening the night was Ninajirachi, fresh off a huge year and an ideal choice to warm up an arena crowd. girl EDM kicked things off with wild lighting and visuals across the screens, before she moved straight into London Song. Across the rest of the set, highlights included the fever dream of CSIRAC spilling into the Dylan Brady remix, Delete as a personal favourite, and iPod Touch getting people throughout the stadium up and dancing. With her latest album I Love My Computer being one of the biggest Australian releases of last year, Fuck My Computer brought her set to a climactic close, with the crowd well and truly warmed up for the main event.
A single beam of light marked Kevin Parker’s arrival as Tame Impala opened the set with Apocalypse Dreams; walls of light and lasers stretching across Rod Laver Arena. The unreleased Deadbeat Jam followed, with Parker calling out, ‘Melbourne… we going to have some fun tonight or what?’ before welcoming everyone to the Deadbeat Tour.
By Borderline, most of the seated arena was on its feet and singing along. During Breathe Deeper, he reminded Melbourne this was night two, and challenged everyone in the crowd to go even wilder than the night before. Taking time to give Ninajirachi a big shout-out, Kevin told the crowd just how excited he’d been for the tour.
Gossip loosened things up again, with Parker dancing, hands in the air, as he took in the band around him. An older favourite, Elephant, followed, a song we first saw Tame Impala play at Festival Hall back in 2013.
During Afterthought, Parker made his way into the crowd before returning to talk about the band’s long history of playing Melbourne. He spoke about how the city has always held a special place for them, then introduced My Old Ways as a song they had never played in Melbourne before.
Feels Like We Only Go Backwards brought one of the biggest singalongs of the night, with the arena lit in bursts of colour as the chorus carried around the room. No Reply then became the transition to the B stage, with the camera following Parker through Rod Laver Arena on his way across the venue, including a detour to the bathroom.
On the B stage, Ethereal Connection saw Parker surrounded by lamps as he built beats in front of the crowd, before Not My World found him singing while lying back inside the cosy setup as phone lights filled the arena around him.
Back on the main stage, Let It Happen was everything we wanted it to be, with lasers, confetti and the entire arena singing along with the beat during the huge drop. Nangs followed with its hypnotic visuals before Parker introduced a genuine rarity, List of People (To Try and Forget About). He explained that it had never been played in Melbourne before and revealed afterwards that he had actually started writing the song in our city.
Piece of Heaven came next, before Eventually, a welcome inclusion to the set, added another highlight to the evening. The recognisable opening of New Person, Same Old Mistakes continued the good vibes with another burst of confetti leading into the final chorus to close out the main set.
The encore began with the camera feed taking on a deep red tint ahead of Dracula. ‘I don’t want tonight to end,’ Parker admitted as he returned to the stage, before assuring the crowd there was still more music to come. The Less I Know the Better once again proved why it remains one of their best live songs, before End of Summer brought the night back down to earth for the final moments of the set.
Across the night, Tame Impala balanced the scale of an arena production with the relaxed personality that has always been at the centre of their shows. Between new material, old favourites and songs Melbourne had never heard live before, night two at Rod Laver Arena felt like a set built for both longtime fans and the next chapter of Tame Impala.