Tame Impala at Øya 2019

Tame Impala @ Øyafestivalen 2019 — Tame Impala at Øyafestivalen 2019 - Foto: Johannes Andersen

Tame Impala brought their well-oiled festival headline show to Øya’s Amfiet stage on Thursday night.

Vurdering

Tame Impala at Øyafestivalen 2019: 4/6 Karakter 4

Tame Impala have had an impressive 2019, securing major headline slots at some of the world’s biggest music festivals including Coachella, Prima Vera and Glastonbury.

This is all the more impressive given that Tame Impala aren’t currently promoting a new album to re-awaken the buzz and media attention surrounding the group. Indeed, their most recent album (the highly successful «Currents», that launched the band to the very top of mainstream music scene) was released over four years ago.

On Thursday night, the band’s global festival tour rolled into Oslo for the top slot at Øya’s Amfiet stage.

Impressive sound and visuals

The band has clearly gone all out for these summer shows, and both the sound and the visuals are impressive.

The band has clearly gone all out for these summer shows, and both the sound and the visuals are impressive. The entire stage has been converted to evoke a kind of psyche rock spacecraft illusion, with the band and their extensive range of equipment sat upon a glowing raised platform. Most of the band form mere silhouettes behind wall of smoke and a light display on overdrive, including a huge backdrop of trippy video footage. It is only front man Kevin Parker who occasionally ventures forward and becomes more visible to the crowd, losing his guitar to take his microphone closer to and engage with the Oslo audience.

Clearly, the devoted Tame Impala fans in the crowd (and there were lots of them) had a great time.

Clearly, the devoted Tame Impala fans in the crowd (and there were lots of them) had a great time. The band arrived to a huge cheer from the large Øya crowd, and began proceedings with the slow-paced psychedelic groove of «Let it Happen» from Currents.

From there on in, most of the set is focused on The Currents LP, which seemed to go down well with the Øya crowd, who were dancing and singing along throughout. For many tracks the light show switches focus from the stage to the audience, and beams out rays across Tøyen park to great effect. The band also ocassionally dip into older albums for some fan favourites, including «Mind Mischief» and «Feels like we only go backwards» from 2012’s Lonerism LP, which gets one of the biggest reactions.

Fails to win over the non-converted

So the Tame Impala fans love it. But do the band do enough to win over those few people in the audience who weren’t already big fans of the band?

So the Tame Impala fans love it. But do the band do enough to win over those few people in the audience who weren’t already big fans of the band? Maybe not. The synth-heavy slow-rave from Currents that fills most of tonight’s set gets a little repetitive at times, and the band don’t do much to vary the pace or style.

There are exceptions – in particular the excellent «Elephant» from Lonerism sees the whole band pick up their guitars and get heads nodding in the Øya crowd. A few more tracks from earlier albums, especially the excellent debut album ‘InnerSpeaker’ might have helped to improve the variety and win over the non-converted.

Not that tonight’s crowd seems to care too much. You get the feeling that when Tame Impala do eventually release a new album, they will be warmly welcomed back to Øya for another headline show.

Alle foto: Johannes Andersen