Tame Impala at RAC Arena - Kevin Parker Brings the Deadbeat Dream Home to Perth Australia
RAC Arena, Perth – 24th October 2026
WORDS MATT OLIVER / IMAGES MATT OLIVER
There is a particular electricity that attends a hometown return when the artist in question has long since outgrown the city that formed him. Kevin Parker’s first of two nights at RAC Arena on the Australian leg of the Deadbeat tour carried that charge without tipping into sentimentality. This was not nostalgia as product; it was a working musician, now a six-piece live unit, bringing a fully realised production home and letting the room feel the weight of it.
Support came from Ninajirachi, whose glitchy, maximalist electronics provided an effective, high-energy contrast.
When Parker and band appeared, the stage was already framed by an ambitious lighting and laser system that would dominate the evening. Parker, dressed with characteristic understatement, addressed the crowd early: this was a hometown show he had been thinking about for a long time. The statement landed because the performance that followed justified it.
The set moved with confident pacing between the denser, more electronic textures of Deadbeat and the established catalogue. “Apocalypse Dreams” opened into a live “Deadbeat Jam” before “Borderline,” “Loser” and “Breathe Deeper” established the evening’s dual character—melancholy and propulsion held in the same hand. “Elephant” retained its lumbering power; “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” arrived with the communal force of a shared anthem. A mid-set move to a smaller B-stage in the floor area allowed quieter, more intimate pieces—“No Reply,” “Ethereal Connection,” “Not My World”—before the return to the main stage for the extended run through “Let It Happen,” “Nangs,” “Posthumous Forgiveness,” “Alter Ego,” “Eventually” and “New Person, Same Old Mistakes.”
Production values were high without becoming overbearing. Lasers, confetti, and precise camera work created immersion rather than distraction. Parker’s stage manner remained characteristically laconic, yet the band—tight, responsive, given room to stretch—delivered the material with both precision and looseness. Local colour surfaced naturally: Fremantle Dockers references, a mid-show interlude that drew laughter, and, during “The Less I Know the Better,” the appearance of young children on stage, a small domestic note inside the spectacle.
At the barrier, the early queuers—some of whom had been in place since early afternoon—formed a concentrated core of attention. Their presence underscored the continuity between the project’s origins and its current arena scale. Parker has never been a conventional frontman; the strength of these shows lies in the music’s internal logic and the visual world built around it. On this night that logic held. The encore—“Dracula,” “The Less I Know the Better,” “End of Summer”—closed the set with both accessibility and a final, slightly downbeat flourish that felt true to the Deadbeat era.
This was a polished, confident homecoming performance from an artist who has refined his live presentation into something both spectacular and coherent. Perth received it as its own.
SET LIST
Apocalypse Dreams
Deadbeat Jam
Borderline
Loser
Breathe Deeper
Gossip
Elephant
Afterthought
My Old Ways
Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
B STAGE
No Reply (Reprise)
Ethereal Connection
Not My World
Let It Happen
Nangs
Posthumous Forgiveness
Alter Ego
Eventually
New Person, Same Old Mistakes
ENCORE
Dracula
The Less I Know the Better
End of Summer
CONNECT WITH TAME IMPALA
Comments