The rail riders, comprised mostly of teen screamers dying for Tame Impala to grace their sightline, had no idea what was going on, but for the only instance the rest of the evening, they were drowned out. Three songs in, however, they let the Bay Area know they knew where they were and bobbed into an upbeat, fast paced take on the Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Street”. UMO, a cross-continental foursome between Oregon, USA and Auckland, New Zealand made up of Ruban Nielson, Jake Portrait, Quincy McCrary and Riley Geare, took control of the evening fairly easily, although for the first few songs they let the crowd think they were in charge by keeping the opening selections “From The Sun” > “How Can You Luv Me” on par with the majority of their shows.
#TAME IMPALA LET IT HAPPEN GUITAR RIFF RINGTONE FULL#
By the time Unknown Mortal Orchestra took the stage (15 minutes early at 7:45PM), the entirety of the venue was nearly full and screaming. But as young as the evening was, there was still plenty of time for the main event on campus. It was impossible not to walk by or against fraternity rushes and groups of freshman trying to decide where they needed to be. The excitement in the crowd mixed with the back-to-school fervor of UC Berkeley. But the best part of having your go-to routine down flawlessly, is that that you can execute it, flawlessly. It didn’t matter whether they played the exact same songs or not because against the moment, it was completely irrelevant.įor many music fans that prefer to see a new set list every night and an ultimately unique experience, this might come as a disappointment Unknown Mortal Orchestra also played it safe and stuck to what they had prepared, but they also were able to keep the crowd on their toes to some degree.
Featuring Beats Antique opening for Primus’ Chocolate Factory show in the freezing rain, I didn’t have any other real or comparable benchmark for something of this caliber. However, the quality of production that Tame Impala put on was second to none and it was personally the most impressive combination of music and visual cues that I have witnessed since my virgin Red Rocks performance. Fans who made it a point to catch more than one of the band’s appearances throughout the summer would have most likely been treated to the same songs, most likely in the same order, too.
One thing about having a highly technical stage production around subtlety nuanced psychedelia is that once you have got what you are going for, there isn’t much room to wiggle. From a near-instant sell out of Red Rocks in Colorado, Project Pabst in the Pacific Northwest and a pair of shows at The Prospect Park Bandshell in Brooklyn, Tame Impala has been greeted with more than slightly enthused fans.
They are currently on tour for their third full-length album Currents and each week this summer has taken them to a different corner of the world, including a total of 12 stand-out appearances in the United States this summer. Tame Impala is made of up of Parker, Jay Watson and Dominic Simper share synthesizer, guitar and vocal duties, Cam Avery on bass and vocals and Julien Barbagallo manning the drum kit as well as adding complex vocal harmonies. The Australian quintet with a penchant for psychedelics has been on the front edge of popularity across the world and with lead singer and guitarist Kevin Parker’s collaboration with Mark Ronson on “Daffodils”, that stock is ever increasing. Tame Impala took over the Bay Area this weekend with a pair of sold out shows at The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley with Unknown Mortal Orchestra supporting on Friday and Saturday September 2 and 3.