Surely a basketball arena wasn’t too small for humble psych rock project Tame Impala, right? I would have said so, but the obscene lines wrapping around the outside of Barclays Center on the first of Tame Impala’s four Brooklyn concerts in support of new album Deadbeat suggested it was an underplay. I’ve been to many New York shows and many at Barclays Center, and never have I ever waited over 30 minutes in line just to enter the building.
The security staff siphoning off entrances was one thing; the sheer pandemonium around seeing Tame Impala live, most of us for the first time in several years, was another. Apparently, according to a security guard, the crowd density for this show was particularly high, and that’s why the bottlenecked entrances were employed. Some 15,000 fans were set to see Tame Impala kick off their “Deadbeat Tour,” and upon entering the arena, it became apparent why the concert felt so supremely packed: The show is in the round. The GA floor capacity was huge, and the entirety of the arena’s seating chart filled with bodies.
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When I finally found my seat mere minutes before the band took the stage, the arena rumbled with such an energy you’d have thought it was Tame Impala’s final show ever (it’s not, and you can get tickets here). Sabrina Carpenter may have been across town embarking on her own mini residency of arena dates, but Kevin Parker was the hottest pop star in New York on Monday night.
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So, what’s all the fuss about another Tame Impala arena tour in 2025? Their last trek, themed to their 2020 album The Slow Rush, had also been an arena run — one on the tail end of a waning pandemic and leaning harder than ever on the idea that Tame Impala shows are meant to be psychedelic marvels. To call the “Rushium” experience a trippy affair would be an understatement; the band took their psych-rock majesty and enchanting catalogue to its arena-sized apex.
Now, however, it’s time for a little more immediacy. Parker and co. have resurfaced with new album Deadbeat, which is as club-ready and dance-forward as they come. It’s designed to be communal and entrancing, with slick, throbbing beats and even slicker pop star moments from Parker. So it’s fitting that they take the Tame Impala live show experience in the round. From the center of the room, Parker and his band absorbed all of the crowd’s energy and filtered it back through their own sonic language, itself marked by Parker’s texturally-specific ear and penchant for spacey, kaleidoscopic breakthroughs.
When the band launched into an electronic-style remix during the bridge of opening track “Apocalypse Dreams,” there was a possibility that the entire concert would be the Tame Impala catalogue rendered in DJ format — a band reinterpreting their own songs is always an interesting choice, but part of me feared that for Tame Impala to truly do a rave set, it would strip the awesome power away from songs like “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” and “Elephant.” Overall, though, the evening wasn’t exactly a Tame Impala show-meets-Fred again.. (though for about 15 minutes on the B-stage, that’s exactly what it was), but it did seek to combine the band’s two dominant modes of pulsating euphoria and hazy, psych-addled zone-outs.
But let’s say you caught the band during their last arena tour, or you’re maybe not the biggest fan of Parker’s Aussie rave stylings on Deadbeat. What’s in the new show for the casual Tame Impala fan?
I’ll tell you right now: this tour has some fucking awesome lights. Nine Inch Nails’ recent “Peel It Back” tour was a great exhibition of how creative, stylized production can greatly enhance the experience of a rock show. This show aims to do the same, and its production is pretty outstanding. On that centered stage, so much of the lighting originated from the nexus point and expanded into gorgeous panels of color. If you have ever found yourself thinking “you know, there just aren’t enough lasers at concerts anymore,” you’ll probably like what they’ve concocted on the “Deadbeat Tour.”
The screens were similarly adorned in a circle, but they shifted and moved throughout the show; as Parker adjusted his own positioning within the stage’s ovular format, the lighting rig and screens would change with him. There was a particularly entrancing ring of light that slowly bent and contorted around the stage with each movement, creating some dazzling stage pictures. The production elements were similar to the massive, tilting circle of light from the last tour, but bringing that circle of light to life in the round and fracturing it made the experience more immersive and engrossing.
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Tame Impala, photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images