Halfway through his first Glasgow show in a decade, Tame Impala has the lights turned up so he can take in the room. “Holy sh**, there’s more of you than I thought,” Kevin Parker says, giving a short laugh as he surveys the crowd.
The Hydro is packed to the rafters on Monday night for the sold-out gig – the penultimate UK date and the only Scottish stop on his global Deadbeat tour.
“I didn’t even know this place goes up this high,” he adds before launching into the show’s third act. “This place is f***ing beautiful, by the way.”
The 13,000-capacity arena is a big jump from Tame Impala’s lauded 2015 gig at the Barrowlands, but it still feels surprisingly intimate.
The night opens with Apocalypse Dreams (Lonerism). Parker – who writes and plays all of the music on the albums – is flanked by a band on a circular stage. Momentum builds as they move through The Moment (Currents); red beams drench the crowd, and by the time Borderline (The Slow Rush) rolls around, nearly the entire arena is on its feet.
The show is completely immersive, with visuals carefully crafted to reflect Parker’s synaesthesia – a neurological trait of hearing music as colour. The set leans heavily into dance, but the psychedelic pop-rock Tame Impala origins are still there.
There is an effective juxtaposition between the epic light show swallowing the arena and Parker’s casual presence – perhaps why it still feels personal on some level. Then a reliable banger like Elephant (Lonerism) kicks in and the sheer weight of the crowd hits again. Feels Like We Only Go Backwards (Currents), set to a dizzying spray of rainbow light beams, is another high point in the first half of the show, alongside Dracula (Deadbeat).
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After bringing the opening act to a close, Parker leaps off the stage and, trailed by a roving camera through the underbelly of the Hydro as he nips off for a leak, he returns – this time to the b‑stage. It’s an intimate set‑up where he takes the reins, surrounded by keyboards, manually mixing his way through Ethereal Connection and Not My World.
Back at the main stage after surveying the bursting venue, anyone who had sat down for the bedroom‑style interlude is back on their feet for Let It Happen (Currents), as confetti cannons erupt and glittering shards of paper dance through the laser lights. The set list is as much a love letter to Currents and Lonerism as it is to its namesake Deadbeat, Tame Impala’s fifth studio album.
Parker jokes about forgetting the day of the week throughout his addresses to the crowd (“I wouldn’t have been able to tell it’s Monday because you guys are so f**ing good, f**ing crazy”). At least three members of the audience are escorted out during the set, with the band stopping and Parker checking that help is on the way. On paper it might seem paradoxical to perform an album about feeling inadequate to sold‑out arenas around the world, but the Glasgow audience clearly connects with his introspective, psych‑pop rave, set to mesmerising visuals.
He treats them to a three‑song encore. “Everyone good? Because there’s no stopping from here on in – no passing out,” he smiles. “I’m just joking, if you pass out, there will be people to help you.”
My Old Ways (Deadbeat) and The Less I Know the Better (Currents) come first, before the Hydro is turned into an all‑out rave for the closer, End of Summer (Deadbeat).
Three blasts of confetti, exceptional vocals and an impressive, meticulous light show make Tame Impala’s Glasgow return an otherworldly hit for fans old and new.
Marissa MacWhirter is a columnist and feature writer at The Herald, and the editor of The Glasgow Wrap. The newsletter is curated between 5-7am, bringing the best of local news to your inbox each morning without ads, clickbait, or hyperbole. Oh, and it’s free. She can be found on X @marissaamayy1
