Last Night Tame Impala Played a Gig in the Same Venue as One Direction

photo by Simon Fernandez

If you're in a band, you can't choose how big you get. But you can sure as hell choose how you behave when you get there.

Perth's premier acid-munchers Tame Impala have somehow wound up playing in the same venue that One Direction graced only a year or so ago. So, though there's a few lads down the front that have tied their scarfs round their heads and are desperately trying to act like everything is really far out maaaan, there's still a baffling amount of people here on works dos.

So when they begin an encore with a lengthy drum solo, some tripped-out visuals and Parker shambling around the stage talking crap and making a paper airplane, Barry, Dave and the staff of Price Waterhouse Cooper aren't quite sure what to do with themselves. It's all kind of brilliant, the band psyching out their audience, running inharmonic noise around through their side partings and onto the rafters above.

photo by Simon Fernandez

Of course, there are plenty of crowd-pleasing moments too – not in the “OOOOSH” Kasabian school of crowd-pleasing (although 'Elephant' has bizarrely become a bit of a ladz anthem), but in the sense that you'd have to be a complete fucking dick to not be totally won over by how good they sound. "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" is like someone injecting your heart with liquid bliss, "Desire Be, Desire Go" is sung as though the spirit of John Lennon has stolen Parker's vocal chords and basically every other track - from a harmony-ridden 'Mind Mischief' to a hypnotic "Endors Toi" - sounds like the musical equivalent of that Youtube guy who found the double rainbow.

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