We’ve all seen that footage of Tame Impala playing to almost no one at a Perth festival in 2008. It’s a cool reminder that everyone, even one of the biggest bands in Australia, had to start somewhere.
That footage becomes even more inspiring and remarkable when you remind yourself that the Kevin Parker-led psychedelic outfit were recently announced as the last act to play before Adele makes her Glastonbury debut.
But according to Parker himself, Tame Impala’s very first gig was even rougher than an apathetic crowd at a Perth festival, and certainly less cushy than opening for the chart-busting diva at Glastonbury.
“The first Tame Impala gig, officially, was just when I changed the name to Tame Impala; there was a name before that, and before that. I’ve always had a recording project and then had a band that [performs the] live side of it,” Parker told Vice.
“The first time we played as Tame Impala, we played a show in a country town, south of Perth; it was the first time Jay [Watson] joined the live band coincidentally. It’s a pretty rough town.”
“You know in Blues Brothers when they play that gig and people are throwing bottles at them? It’s one of those places. There were no bottles, but there was a bit of yelling.”
Parker also remarked on how there really aren’t that many years of separation from his band’s days as one of many groups in the bustling Perth music scene, making their bones at small clubs with disinterested crowds.
“We were playing in the Perth scene with that sort of thing for so many years, so comparatively it hasn’t been that long that we’ve been playing only big shows; I don’t think the ratio has tipped that way enough yet for me to forgot what it’s like,” he said.
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“I think [in the future] one of us will start a side band or something, and do a show as some band we just made up on the day, at a bar down the road from us in Perth, so we can get that feeling back of being unknown.”
“That’s a feeling that’s more potent than the size of the venue, the anticipation of who knows you, maybe two people and the rest are there to see a band later on, or to pick up chicks or whatever, and getting up there and having to prove yourself, to win some people over.”
Speaking to Vice, Parker also recounted how he snuck into a White Stripes concert with his brother’s ID, as well as his favourite concert experience ever – seeing the Flaming Lips in Japan whilst high on acid.
