When the projector bulb blew a few minutes before Tame Impala was set to perform at The Tabernacle Monday night in Atlanta, Ga., there was some cause for concern. After all, the Australian rockers are known for their self-described “fucked-up, explosive, cosmic music,” a sound that is often accompanied by psychedelic images and clips for full effect.
When the band took the stage shortly after 9 p.m., there were no trippy videos to watch and no wild set construction to absorb. There were just five simply-dressed guys on an unusually bare stage, with nothing to stand on but their music.
It stood, all right.
Actually, most of the packed crowd at the historic concert hall were on their feet for the entire hour and a half set. As the band played through the hits on their two albums, 2011’s Innerspeaker and last year’s Lonerism, the energetic fans danced, moshed and crowd-surfed their way to an all out groove party.
At one point, lead singer and founder, Kevin Parker, told the crowd, “I feel like I’m in a movie or something, and this is the last scene. You guys are doing so well.”
But the audience wasn’t the source of last night’s success. It was the band’s ability to play through their set at a perfect pace, alternating between experimental, instrumental tracks and their more recognizable, rock jams. At the conclusion of “Apocalypse Dreams,” Parker and the band cut our for at least 30 seconds before launching back into a repeat ending of the song, a move that only intensified the crowd’s already growing enthusiasm.
Instead of feeling like the several songs that it was, the set felt more like a single transitional track, a unified ebb and flow that pulled the audience further in as the night went on. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them burst out onto Luckie St. at the conclusion of the show, wondering whether they had just seen an intimate indie rock show or a stadium rock concert. The two sure felt similar last night.
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