Audio

Tame Impala at Co-op Live, Manchester – lasers, lights, and a bit of a hangover

His first Manchester gig in a decade did not disappoint.

Daisy Jackson - 9th May 2026

The coolest man in the southern hemisphere has finally made his way back up north, for his first Manchester gig in a decade.

That cool man in question is Tame Impala, the music project of what-the-hell-can’t-he-play multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker.

Sure, last year’s single release ‘Dracula’, and then its remix re-release with K-pop megastar Jennie, may have propelled Tame Impala up towards the top of the UK singles chart for the first time, but he’s got almost two decades-worth of music to dig through beyond that too.

It’s a hefty discography and it leads to a setlist that seems to almost peak about six times.

‘How could it possibly get better than this?’ we seem to ask as he plays The Moment, Elephant, Dracula, and Let It Happen pretty early on – but better it does indeed get.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether he’s up on the main space-ship-esque stage surrounded by lasers and lights, or sat on the floor of the B Stage playing around with a keyboard, Tame Impala has an irresistible, enchanting charisma. A lot more charisma that you’d expect from a man called Kevin.

Early on, he confesses that he’s quite severely hungover from last night’s show, where he had Dua Lipa (he wrote and produced her Radical Optimism album) as a surprise guest.

But you can see the hangover clear from his eyes in real time as 23,500 Mancs scream in his face. Which might not sound like a likely hangover cure, but who am I to argue with the evidence in front of me?

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Although Kevin writes, produces, and records his music solo, he’s got half a dozen musicians up on the main stage with him, which looks like a convoluted space ship that fires confetti out of its thrusters (FOUR TIMES!).

With revolving lights, dancing lasers, and a metal grid base spewing out dry ice, it’s really one hell of a production.

It’s a light show designed to give us all a glimpse of his synesthesia (meaning he sees colours when he hears music (Billie Eilish has it too)) – essentially, if you couldn’t hear a thing and could only see the stage, you can still tell exactly what song is playing.

Still, when he saunters straight through the crowd to his smaller stage to mix tracks solo – no lasers, just a few lamps – flopping down onto a tangle of wires like a mad magpie building himself a nest, it’s a chance to remember this guy’s composing prowess.

A lot of the songs performed tonight are almost orchestral in their complexity, so that the whole show merges into one thundering, bewitching night of dancing and being blasted in the face by confetti.

It’s genius.

So can you not leave it another decade before you come back, Kevin?