tame-impala-fillmore-san-francisco

Continuing their sold out world tour in support of their new, critically-acclaimed album Lonerism, Tame Impala visited the historic Fillmore in San Francisco this Thursday night. As frontman Kevin Parker noted, “we’ve been reading about the Fillmore for years. And now we’re here…”. Yet Tame Impala’s Aussie, cosmonaut, psyche pop seemed perfectly at home within the Fillmore walls and went down as one of the best concerts I’ve seen in 2012. Photos and setlist below.

Opening band The Amazing set themselves up in a precarious situation by, well, naming their band “The Amazing”. But name jokes aside, opening for Tame Impala is also a fairly tall order. They played a subdued brand of somewhat somber psyche pop that reminded me of elements heard in Matt Pond PA and the Jon Butler Trio. Admittedly, I am not familiar with their material. But they did a solid job of entertaining a crowd that seemed to triple during the set-change time before Tame Impala

Now, Tame Impala. Personally, I’ve been a massive fan of the band’s 2008 self-titled EP and follow-up LP Innerspeak. Lonerism has not left my car CD player since I first put it in over two months ago. So coming into the concert, I had a hard time remembering the last time I was so excited for a concert. The big question in my mind was how Kevin Parker’s excellent recordings would translate with his live mates. See, Kevin wrote and recorded all parts for all instruments for, as I understand it, the majority of all Tame Impala recordings. This isn’t infrequent these days, as many a songwriter will pull this and have a live crew tour the material on the road. The difference is that Kevin Parker’s friends/live band also happen to be very accomplished musicians in world-touring bands themselves. Case-in-point, Tame Impala members Jay Watson and Nick Allbrook also play in the band Pond, whom NME named “The Hottest New Band in the World” this May. Not a bad cast to have support you.

From the first notes of opener “Be Above It”, which the band playfully dubbed “Be A Muppet” on the setlist, it was very apparent that the recordings would be done justice in the live setting. Tame Impala flowed through a healthy balance of tracks off both Innerspeak and this year’s Lonerism, checking off essentially ever “must hear” track on this fanboy’s list. It was amazing to see how effortlessly, and barefootedly, the dudes of Tame Impala handled the complex psychedelic intricacies of their tracks. I read another writer’s commentary that it seemed they had “molasses in their blood”. They certainly are laid back dudes, but they’re laid back dudes delivering perhaps the closest recreation to vintage, late sixties, deep psychedelic rock that we have today. If their demeanor seemed lax, you only needed to close your eyes and listen for four seconds to fall into their swirling, expansive tunes. And on another note, it was incredible how big their sound felt in the Fillmore. Seeing the up-front, emotive rock of Japandroids earlier in the week, Tame Impala’s sound appeared larger than any show I’ve seen at Fillmore so far.

To cap off a stellar night where Tame Impala’s pop had the crowd moving through the whole set, they returned for an encore performance of “Half Full Glass of Wine”, off their debut EP. Within the first few notes of the Cream-style guitar riff from Parker’s hands–one that’s so catchy I learned it myself–I burst into an ear-to-ear smile. Moreover, they dudes took the track into an ultra extended, 12-15 minute jam version where they truly demonstrated their chops as psyche musicians. And whilst in the depths of a tripped out space jam that would’ve please Sgt Peppers-era Beatles fans, they stopped on a dime to pour right back into the main riff to close the show.

Thank you Tame Impala for making me feel like an 8 year old once again.

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Setlist
Be Above It
Intro
Solitude Is Bliss
Endors Toi
It’s Not Meant To Be
Music To Walk Home By
Elephant
Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
Lucidity
Alter Ego
Mind Mischief
Why Won’t You Make Up Your Mind?
Desire Be Desire Go
Apocalypse Dreams
—Encore Break—
Half Full Glass Of Wine

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