Empire of the Sun
‘We watched Game of Thrones before the show to set the mood,’ discloses frontman Luke Steele during Empire of the Sun’s only musical deliberation of the evening. A heavy-handed mood-setter — though perhaps suitable for the band’s only show of the tour at a venue involved in the Norman Conquest — Steele’s approach to crowdwork is entirely in keeping with his band’s fully realised phobia of subtlety.
Coming up to their twentieth year as an act (officially formed in 2007 between Steele and keyboard player Nick Littlemore), the Australian electro-pop duo make it apparent that the two decades spent refining their craft extends as much to their visuals as to their music.
We’re still minutes before showtime when attention is less ‘turned to’ and more ‘kicked into place’ towards the undeniably grandiose production — we’ve an inflatable foam-looking head the size of a small garage to the stage right, opposing an equally massive yet physically undetermined gelatinous lump — and this grandiosity is only expanded upon when the band’s presence is made known to the crowd. As per Empire standards, Steele’s half-Prince Vultan, half-Aztec stylings encompass a handful of costume changes (as do his combination of nameless, kimonoclad dancers), each of which produce more admiration in the beating Welsh sun.
It comes then as desperate relief that Empire’s stagecraft and cast-iron back catalogue are able to avoid being overwhelmed by visual antics, but instead provide what is eventually realised as a suitably phosphorescent backdrop to music that still feels fresh and life-affirming even after two decades.
Within the first 20 minutes, we’re greeted with two certified crowd-pleasers in ‘Half-Mast’ and ‘We Are The People’, both songs which — not unlike the band themselves — have seemingly organically grown in stature since 2008. Though no fault of the band, there’s an air of uncertainty leading into a run of new album tracks; their second wind and recent explosion in terms of streaming numbers has undoubtedly been aided by their proliferation across TikTok, and touring in support of 2024’s fantastic comeback album Ask That God poses a test of attention span to a surprisingly young audience.
The icy ‘Awakening’ makes a welcome return to setlists as the highlight of a middle act consisting of alarmingly accomplished segues between songs and, in a surprise to no one, a veritable smorgasbord of instrumental solos; Steele’s guitar playing is much less understated on stage — his role with a guitar in his hand appears to be to shred, and shred only. Though otherwise wholehearted, it’s a shame that a typically ornate three-person bat sculpture is marred by tech issues preventing Steele from performing his role as ‘Head of the Bat’, but this does little to downplay the continuously high-energy affair of the central hour.
Steele ends title track ‘Ask That God’ by providing the most pure of live music sights — the removal of one half of a guitar from the other via the floor — propelling us into the aptly summertime staples of ‘Walking on a Dream’ and ‘Alive’, the reaction to both of which go a long way to dispelling myths of the younger generation not engaging with live music.
Acclaim is due for the sheer commitment to the act in stifling heat alone, but the spectacle on show is evidence enough that, though close to ten years out of the studio has matured rather than transformed the band’s sound, there has likely never been as much substance baked into the style.