Review: Jose Eduardo Cruz

Click image to view photo gallery [Photo: Charlyn Cameron]

Given that this was a Friday night in Brisbane and it was getting colder by the minute, I wasn’t expecting such a big turn out tonight. But to my surprise the venue was three quarters full and a great atmosphere had already begun to build prior to the headliners entering the stage. I managed to catch a good part of The Silents’ set which was a good appetizer before the main meal. Very gentle sounds

and everything that a good warm up band should contain. Good sounds, ok mix and great potential to be the headliner in a couple of years.

Tame Impala get onto the stage as if they were walking into their living room to sit down for a jam in front of their friends. Bare feet, smiles and a few beers in hand they each position themselves and prepare. It is so noticeable that it needs to be mentioned, as soon as the first note is played each of the members’ face completely changes and a focused look falls onto their appearance. Gone is the joker side and game face appears. Their eyes say that the one thing that they all came here to do is upon them and the time has arrived to celebrate.
Seamlessly they begin with two gentle pieces that allows them to warm up into the set and lay down the ground work for the remainder of the night. Third song and we are into it. Big drum fills layered with guitar loops that go great with the projected imagery.

Lets be honest here, these guys are not trying to reinvent the wheel. They use long and tried rock beats, drums fills, and repetition. However, what needs to be pointed out is that every good band notices very early on that simple is always best. Nail the beat on the head and fill the bars with catchy riffs and you have yourself a great timeless song. Tame Impala have captured that by the bucket loads and seeing them do this live is amazing. Self described as psychedelic trance rock; they certainly very quickly manage to literally trance the whole audience into a hypnotic dance.

For a long while during the show I found myself thinking I was in a surf movie sitting on a board waiting for the next set to arrive. It was very powerful that they could achieve this and carry on with it for the whole set.

This tour is in support of the latest release Innerspeaker and contains a good portion of the album in the set as one would expect.

Overall for someone, like myself, that has never seen Tame Impala live, this was an excellent night of Australian music.

Click image to view photo gallery

[Photo: Charlyn Cameron]