Review: In Tampa debut, Tame Impala helps 19,900 fans feel human again [PHOTOS]

Tame Impala plays Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Florida on July 9, 2026. Credit: Sandra Dohnert / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

In a world increasingly influenced by algorithms, it was good to be surrounded by humanity last Thursday night.

Representatives for Benchmark International Arena told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that 19,900 packed into the venue to watch Tame Impala make its sold-out local debut. And those people—from parents of infants in Baby Bjorns, to boomers in Chuck Taylors, plus Gen-X-Y-and-Z—were everywhere, from the GA floor admission to standing room only spaces in the concourse. They came draped in their most coveted thrift store finds, with many ditching phones for point-and-shoots as they captured memories that’ll inevitably turn up in a photo dump captioned, “lately.”

Taking the stage at 8:45 p.m. after an opening set by Joe Keery’s American rock band Djo, Australian producer and songwriter Kevin Parker, flanked by five musicians, gave fans plenty of reasons to stay unplugged, too, running through 23 songs in just over two hours.

While a big singalong ensued on “Borderline,” it took the band some time to get the energy up, perhaps because it was wading through an initial sound mix that buried much of the synth (“Apocalypse Dreams”), Mort Garson-inspired Moog (“Deadbeat jam”) and even harmony (“Loser”).

All was right by the time the heavy groove and bedroom piano of “Breathe Deeper” arrived, colored in part by huge Moog sounds. Bass from the electronics really started to shake the arena by the time Parker, 40, found himself on his back performing “Gossip” then riding high on live drums from Julien Barbagallo during “Elephant” where Black Sabbath riffs from a Rickenbacker (a 330?) blended well with almost Wurlitzer-esque sounds. All of it was illuminated by shape-shifting lighting, lasters, and video rigs that threatened to beam the most stoned in the crowd straight into outer space.

After deploying “Afterthought” to tease the house music from Tame Impala’s latest album, Deadbeat, Parker took a beat to soak it all in.

“It looks beautiful in here guys,” he said. “I know it’s a sports arena but it looks beautiful.”

It’s easy to see why so many fans are drawn to the Aussie who’s earned back-to-back Grammys for “Best Dance/Electronic Recording.”

Credit: Sandra Dohnert / Creative Loafing Tampa Bay

Parker, scruff and unkempt, possesses an almost effortless slacker-charisma. While he’s almost an anti-frontman, letting the music (and holy shit, the lasers) do the strutting, there is no doubt about his role as mastermind in the Tame Impala universe.

The maestro let it be known as the band eased out of “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” into a staged on-camera pee-break and then to a mini-set on a B-stage. Adorned with just living room lamps, along with Roland drum sequencers and Sequential synths, the break offered a glimpse into how Parker’s created music since well before Innerspeaker (“Alter Ego” was the only track from that 2010 breakout to make the setlist).

As the crew captured eye-level, intimate, video of the all-too-short three-song it was refreshing to see how man and machine were meant to coexist.

Forces everywhere seem intent on pushing us all to adopt AI, and even whisper to our computers instead of typing into them. But no prints can come from fingers if machines becomes our hands. While wires were all over the place, running in and out of the 360-degree stage (and what looked like a Behringer modular synth), every part of Tame Impala’s Tampa show had fingerprints all over it.

That was most evident in the short breath that was “Nangs,” where blue strobes flickered while the pitch and sound of the synth bent and oscillated—a warbly reminder that the song is an allusion to whippets. To breathe that song in, with a circle of analog equipment at the center, was just as intoxicating, too.

Tame Impala setlist at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa, Fla. on July 9, 2026

Apocalypse Dreams
[Deadbeat jam]
Borderline
Loser
Breathe Deeper
Gossip
Elephant
Afterthought
My Old Ways
Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
—
No Reply
Ethereal Connection
Not My World
—
Let It Happen
Nangs
Alter Ego
Piece of Heaven
Eventually
New Person, Same Old Mistakes
—
Dracula
The Moment
The Less I Know the Better
End of Summer