Tame Impala’s Circular Stage Reorders a Catalog

Tame Impala’s current arena tour begins from a circular stage placed in the middle of the floor. Kevin Parker spends most of the night moving around its exterior while his bandmates stay fixed at the center, sometimes hidden behind video screens.

At Nationwide Arena in Columbus on Tuesday, that setup gave the setlist a sharper logic. Opening with “Apocalypse Dreams,” the 2012 Lonerism track slid directly into “Borderline,” a song from The Slow Rush built for very different rooms. “Let It Happen,” once an obvious opener or closer, now sat mid-show, surrounded by confetti and followed by more confetti later. The production treated dance-pop tracks like “Breathe Deeper” and guitar-driven songs like “Elephant” as part of the same continuum.

Some of the sharpest moments came from older material. “Eventually” worked as a laser-lit arena centerpiece, and early favorites such as “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” and “Alter Ego” sat comfortably beside the less guitar-centric songs. The encore leaned on streaming-era hits, including “The Less I Know The Better” and “End Of Summer.” The show did not erase Parker’s shift from psych-rock auteur to pop producer, but it made the change feel less like a break and more like a deliberate progression.