Tame Impala ProfileTame Impala kicked off the Australian leg of their 12-show Deadbeat Tour in Brisbane last night. The 13,000 punters spanned different ages, presumably drawn in by the expansive sounds of the genre-bending Perth outfit that has come to be known as one of Australia's best musical exports.
The attire sprinkled through the crowds hinted at these influences, with the festival-clad tribe likely seeking the psychedelic sound the group has pioneered, as well as the uniform-black rockers and even those seeking some EDM musings that Kevin Parker flirted with on their most recent 2025 Deadbeat record.
Oh, and did we mention the people dressed in full gorilla costumes, a nod to the 2015 The Less I Know The Better video clip? Commitment when facing Brisbane spring weather.
The Deadbeat Tour kicked off earlier this year and will conclude in May 2027, but despite taking the show on the road through the US and Europe, it felt like it was put together with love specifically for us. Of course, this marks the first time Tame has been back to Australia for a tour in four years, with that gap not lost on Parker.
Parker said, ”It feels good to be home. It feels really good. Tonight is the first night of the tour; I don't know if you guys know that. But needless to say, I've been waiting for this day for a long time, and I'm so excited. I promise I'm not gonna go on about this all night, but I just want you to know how special it means to be playing these shows and these songs back home, finally. I'm really thankful.”
He continued, baiting us, “All right, well that should do it for now. Should we continue? Should we get a bit loose, Brisbane, what do you think?”
Once we had warmed up, Parker felt emboldened to raise the elephant (pun intended) in the room. Fremantle Dockers’ recent loss to Brisbane Lions. With the Grand Final still a searing memory for Parker, who is proudly touted as “Freo’s number 1 ticket holder”, Parker could not resist the chance to bring it up.
“Now, Brisbane, I didn't come here tonight to talk about sport. And I don't usually do that, but seeing as though we're here, do we have any Brisbane Lions fans in the house?” Parker asked, receiving a unanimous cheer to let him know he was surrounded by Lions fans.
“Well, I have one thing to say to you,” Parker said and then took in a long, deep breath before saying, “Congratulations. You broke my heart two weeks ago, but don't worry about us. You know as well as we do that our time is coming. And when it does, I hope that you'll be as gracious.”
You try not to play favourites as faithful disciples of any band, and with Tame Impala’s track record, it’s easy to get the needle spinning on every one of their five albums. With the energy at 100% throughout the show, we collectively managed to find even more for those earlier records, pulling tracks from their earlier work. The setlist featured 22 songs (excluding jams and a B-side): nine from Deadbeat, six from Currents, two from Slow Rush, and three glorious performances from Lonerism.
The production value was a far cry from the Innerspeaker days or when the boys were on the festival circuit in the early 2010s, but it still had a vibe that was true to their nostalgic and trippy vibe, with a permanent haze hanging inside the stadium making the colour-saturated lighting and lasers particularly interesting throughout the show.
The stage was a circle, with Parker front and centre and his other five bandmates facing the audience around the circle edge, with a bulb of light hanging over each of them. The camera work was phenomenal throughout the entire show, with vignettes of the band interspersed with other visuals of places both beautiful (mountains, skies) and mundane (roads, traffic signage). There was a shimmering and hypnotic edge to all the visuals, as if Parker was moving at a two-second lag, with the fuzzy edges melting into a kaleidoscope of colour.
There was always something happening on stage, except when Parker departed, leaving through the back and a cameraman following behind him as we saw him walk down the halls of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre backstage. Pretty quickly, you could hear frenzied theories and hurried voices as the audience speculated where he was going and what door we would see him pop out of.
Parker kept walking until he stopped in front of a urinal, with the cameraman dropping the camera so that we could only see Parker's feet at the urinal - met with approving applause from the audience, still hopeful that an audience appearance might still happen. Sure enough, the cameraman resumed following Parker as he stopped by a mirror to ruffle his hair and fix his belt, before taking a turn and entering the crowd at the back of the centre.
We were then treated to a B Stage performance as he made his way to a small stage in a previously dark part of the venue, with four lamps illuminating a Moroccan rug and a collection of decks. Ethereal Connection, from their recent Deadbeat album, was a surprising interlude in the show, with the EDM-style track injecting a party feel.
The long track rounds out with signature dreamy vocals from Parker, which he performed lying down on the rug, with camera visuals capturing him from the side. Not My World was also from the Deadbeat album and was the second and final performance on B Stage, getting Parker off the rug and back on the decks and showing off his DJ chops.
It’s impossible to pick a favourite song, but Let It Happen from start to finish was a blur of sound, cheers and everyone on their feet dancing from the nosebleeds to the front of the stage. And just when you think it could end there and you be a happy girl, Parker slammed his hand on a button, triggering a burst of confetti from the front of the stage and ceiling, with a sea of rainbow-coloured paper dancing in the laser haze and light show.
Eventually, a slower but no less energetic track, was incredible live and had the audience's pleading vocals (Eventually, ah-ah, ah, ah-ah) that almost rivalled Parker’s mic. The bass-heavy Elephant had the vibrations bouncing through my ribcage, and we noticed a party of four duck out of their chairs and return with earplugs.
New Person, Same Old Mistakes was the last song before the encore, and the perfect selection, with the slow, heavy, hypnotic track having us sway to the woozy synth, realising how exhausted and energised we were as the show wrapped up.
The encore did not disappoint, and how could it with Dracula, The Less I Know The Better and End of Summer given to us as a final gift after so long between live shows in Oz. If there was any debate about whether the band's recent music was a hit, Dracula and End of Summer from Deadbeat were absolutely lapped up by the audience, and you could see thousands of phones pointed at the stage to capture every moment. The Less I Know The Better was my favourite of the three encores, and the track is widely regarded as one of the group’s most successful songs.
Alas, all good things come to an end, and the show wrapped up with an audience that was well fed but still begging for more.
With two more shows in Brisbane this week, the tour then continues in Melbourne (14 to 17 October), then Sydney (19 to 21 October), and then of course, wrapping up with two shows in their hometown of Perth (October 24 and 25) with what should be a hell of a homecoming.
Tame Impala was supported by the wickedly talented Ninajirachi (Nina Wilson). Her glitchy, maximalist electronic music was the perfect warm-up to Tame Impala, and she could have taken the stage in her own right and performed her extensive body of work.
Parker seemed genuinely chuffed to have Ninajirachi on the bill for every show on the Australian tour. He said, “One of the reasons that I'm so excited for this tour is we get to share it with the weapon that is Ninajirachi. I love her music so much; we're so... so lucky to have her.”
