The adults in the audience at the Wiggles Perth show on Sunday enjoyed an unexpected surprise when Kevin Parker of Tame Impala jumped on stage to perform with the children’s band.
The Wiggles were performing their Fruit Salad TV Big Show tour at RAC Arena on Sunday when Parker took to the stage, donned in the group’s iconic blue skivvy.
The music legends performed the Tame Impala song ‘Elephant’ together before continuing on to treat fans to a performance of ‘Hot Potato’.
Speaking of the unexpected collaboration, Kevin Parker said; “When I got the invitation I knew it was a once-in-a-life time opportunity so it was an obvious yes. The Wiggles are the real rockstars in this world. I was pretty nervous!”
Kevin Parker from @tameimpala joining @TheWiggles on stage is just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen 🙌🏼 pic.twitter.com/nGKRm9LYxp
— Cam Wedemeyer (@camwedemeyer) April 10, 2022
The joint act was especially significant considering that The Wiggles took out the top spot on triple j’s hottest 100 this year with their cover of Tame Impala’s ‘Elephant’.
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The group debuted the cover on triple j’s Like A Version in March last year.
“We wanted to choose something Australian,” said Emma Watkins, the former yellow Wiggle of their song choice. “For most of the time that we’ve had the honour of going to The ARIAs, we get to see Tame Impala a lot on stage. We’ve never really met them properly but we thought that we’d like to pay tribute to this amazing Australian band.”
“We know people take [Like A Version] very seriously,” added blue Wiggle Anthony Field said. “So we didn’t want to stuff it up. Also, it’s an amazing song, and it’s deceptively hard. I thought it was going to be like [Norman Greenbaum‘s] ‘Spirit In The Sky’ but you get into it and…the guy’s a genius!”
But, while the group’s cover of Elephant was met with a largely positive response at the time, their win of triple j’s Hottest 100 received a much cooler public reaction. It was largely pointed out how the win for the Wiggles was actually a huge loss for the Australian contemporary music scene.
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