Djo Comes Home to TD Garden on the Tame Impala Deadbeat Tour
TD Garden on Tuesday night was a study in contrasts before a note was played. Tame Impala's core fanbase (millennial, male, guitar-oriented, and here for the psychedelic deep cuts) versus Djo’s (predominantly Gen Z, women, and very dedicated). The two camps coexisted easily enough, but the demographic split was visible from the photo pit. The show was sold out either way.
The show at TD Garden was night one of Tame Impala's two-night Boston stand on the Deadbeat Tour, with Djo opening for both. For Djo - Joe Keery, Newburyport native, Stranger Things alumnus, and increasingly serious musician - playing TD Garden as a supporting act was a considerably different kind of Boston homecoming than his sold-out Roadrunner headline show last year. Bigger room, different context, same hometown crowd energy.
His ten-song set was generous by opener standards at a show this size. Opening on "Awake" and moving through "Change" and "Basic Being Basic" before settling into the more psychedelic-leaning mid-set stretch of "Lonesome Is a State of Mind" and "Roddy," Djo's band filled the 360-degree stage with a confidence that you don’t always see from an opener performing on another act’s stage. The stage design, draped in wires and cables to evoke the look of a recording studio, fitting for Kevin Parker's production-obsessed aesthetic, meant that barricade fans got a rotating, fragmented view as the band worked all angles. From the seats, it must have looked considerably more cohesive.
"Charlie's Garden" was the personal set highlight, a track that carries a Beatles-esque quality that feels almost out of time in the best possible way. "Delete Ya" landed well with the Gen Z contingent who clearly knew every word, and the whole set built toward its inevitable close. When the opening notes of "End of Beginning" arrived, the track that went viral earlier this year, the Garden responded accordingly. "And when I'm back in Chicago" rang out from thousands of voices, even the most casual of fans. Given that Keery was standing in his home state, the line carried a particular kind of irony that the crowd seemed to appreciate fully.
The best moment of the night came later. When Tame Impala's set reached "Loser," Djo and his band walked back out onto the stage to perform it alongside them. It's not something he's been doing at other stops on this tour. Whether the hometown pull brought him out or something else, the crowd reaction was enormous.
Tame Impala's set was a production spectacle that rewarded the people watching from their seats far more than those in the pit. Lasers, confetti, the full 360-degree stage doing what it was designed to do from a distance. Kevin Parker made time mid-set for a bathroom break that his camera operator documented in full. The walk, the facilities, the handwashing, the return, all projected live on the big screens in what was clearly a pre-planned bit that landed as absurdly as intended. He also set up a B-stage mid-arena with what appeared to be production equipment and a bed, performing "Ethereal Connection" and "Not My World" from there in a more stripped-down electronic format, building the songs himself while lying down. "The Less I Know the Better" and "Dracula" hit the spots in the main set that they always hit, and the crowd sang both back at full volume.
Night two was the following evening, and included a surprise performance from JENNIE from BLACKPINK who collaborated with Tame on a remix of Dracula. The crowd was just as into Djo’s set night two as they were on night one, and many fans were there for both performances
DJO SETLIST:
Awake
Change
Basic Being Basic
Lonesome Is a State of Mind
Roddy
Fool
Charlie's Garden
Delete Ya
Egg
End of Beginning
