The Emperor's New Rave - Empire of the Sun Conquer The Piece Hall

Phil Wright
58 minutes ago
4 min read

The Piece Hall, Halifax – Sunday 28th June 2026

WORDS / IMAGES PHIL WRIGHT

The Emperor's New Rave - Empire of the Sun Conquer The Piece Hall — PHOTO CREDIT PHIL WRIGHT

There are concert venues, and then there is The Piece Hall. Once the beating commercial heart of Yorkshire's cloth trade, this magnificent Georgian courtyard has quietly reinvented itself as one of Britain's great outdoor music venues. Every summer the line-up seems to get bolder, pulling in everyone from indie royalty and rock legends to dance heavyweights and left-field icons. It isn't just the calibre of the artists that makes these shows special; it's the collision of history and modern spectacle. Ancient stone walls that once echoed with merchants haggling over wool now reverberate with stadium-sized sound systems and thousands of voices singing into the Yorkshire night. Standing in that courtyard on Sunday evening, watching the sun slowly disappear behind the old rooftops of Halifax, it already felt like one of those nights where the venue itself becomes part of the performance.

Empire of the Sun have always occupied a strange and wonderful corner of popular music. Formed in Sydney by Luke Steele—best known before this project as the mercurial frontman of The Sleepy Jackson—and Nick Littlemore, the restless creative force behind electronic outfit Pnau, the duo never set out to be just another synth-pop act. Instead, they built an entire mythology around themselves, where music, fantasy, theatre and visual art all exist in the same universe. Since Walking on a Dream exploded into the public consciousness in 2008, they've treated every album like another chapter in an ever-expanding science-fiction fairy tale, blending shimmering electronic pop with glam rock excess, New Romantic flamboyance and enough visual ambition to make most arena productions look positively shy. Even after nearly two decades, they're still creating worlds rather than simply playing songs.

And that is exactly what unfolded inside The Piece Hall.

The lights dropped and suddenly Halifax wasn't Halifax anymore.

The courtyard dissolved into some impossible futuristic kingdom where neon gods wandered beneath giant masks, mythical creatures drifted across enormous video screens and Luke Steele appeared looking less like a frontman than an intergalactic emperor arriving to reclaim his kingdom. Towering headdresses, elaborate costumes, dancers moving with almost ritual precision, waves of colour crashing across the stage—it was impossible to know where to look first. Every song arrived wrapped inside its own visual identity, every lighting cue perfectly timed, every costume change somehow more outrageous than the last.

What immediately struck me wasn't just how spectacular it looked—it was how completely committed they were to the illusion. Plenty of artists use video walls and lighting rigs these days. Empire of the Sun use them as storytelling devices. Nothing felt random. Every beam of light, every projection, every piece of choreography was there to pull you further into their strange alternate reality.

Musically, it was equally overwhelming.

Those huge synth hooks that have somehow survived changing fashions, streaming algorithms and the endless churn of modern pop still sounded enormous beneath the open Yorkshire sky. There were moments that transported you straight back to the late 90s and early 2000s rave culture—not because Empire of the Sun are a dance act in the traditional sense, but because they understand that euphoric release. Layer after layer of shimmering keyboards, enormous electronic drums, soaring choruses and Luke Steele's unmistakable falsetto created that glorious feeling where nostalgia and futurism somehow occupy exactly the same space.

Around me people stopped worrying about looking cool. They danced. They laughed. Complete strangers sang every chorus together. Phones inevitably appeared for the big moments, but most disappeared again just as quickly because this wasn't really a show you wanted to watch through a screen. It demanded your full attention.

Steele himself remains a fascinating performer. He barely needs to work the audience in the conventional rock-and-roll sense because his entire presence commands attention. Somewhere between glam rock star, spiritual guru and comic-book superhero, he glides around the stage with complete confidence while never allowing the production to overwhelm the music itself. That's a difficult balancing act when you're wearing something that looks like it belongs in an imperial museum on another planet.

The acoustics inside The Piece Hall were superb throughout, giving the electronic textures room to breathe while still allowing the rhythm section to hit with real weight. Even the quieter passages carried surprising emotional depth before exploding back into waves of colour and rhythm.

By the closing stretch, the whole courtyard had surrendered. The spectacle had done its job. Thousands of people were smiling, dancing and singing inside a 250-year-old building transformed into something resembling an interstellar carnival.

Some gigs are remembered because of the songs. Others because of the atmosphere. Empire of the Sun managed both, wrapping infectious electronic pop inside one of the most visually ambitious productions currently touring anywhere. In an age where live music often feels increasingly predictable, they continue to remind us that concerts can still be theatrical, bizarre, joyous and utterly transportive.

Walking out into the Halifax night, the old stone arches seemed strangely ordinary again—as though the portal had quietly closed behind us. For two hours, though, The Piece Hall wasn't simply hosting another concert. It had become the capital city of Empire of the Sun.

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