Sometimes I forget that music isn’t technically therapy… and then a night like this comes along and reminds me that actually, it kind of is.
For my 40th birthday, I found myself front row at a Tame Impala show, basically having an out-of-body experience while Kevin Parker poured his psychedelic soul out onstage. Anyone who knows me knows I’m lowkey obsessed, but in a healthy “I just deeply relate to this artist and maybe also want to be him if I ever get reincarnated” sort of way. If I were a dude, there’s no question: I’d be Kevin. He’s basically a mashup of three of my college boyfriends with a sprinkle of the hippie kids I used to hang with back when I was wandering campus in tie dye, signing petitions to decriminalize marijuana, and believing I was absolutely changing the world one Social Work club meeting at a time.
What pulls me into his music isn’t just the sound, though. It’s that almost eerie sense of oh wow, same every time I hear his lyrics. I swear I resonate with like 90% of his songs. It still blows my mind how strangers can end up living parallel emotional lives, writing words that feel like they were lifted straight from your journal. I jokingly call Tame Impala’s music “psychedelic emo” because Kevin has clearly had his heart broken once or twice, but he still comes off like this tender, hopeful romantic. (Again, same.)
And don’t even get me started on his real-life love story. He met his wife, Sophie Lawrence, when they were just 13. They went to high school together. Life took them in different directions for a bit, but they Eventually (see what I did there) ended up together. I sincerely love that for them. So much.
The Deadbeat Tour setlist opened with my favorite song Apocalypse Dreams, which felt like the universe gently patting me on the head going “there there, babe, you’re doing great.” Those lyrics hit like a therapy session I didn’t even have to co-pay for. And of course, classics like Feels Like We Only Go Backwards and The Less I Know the Better are phenomenal live and deeply relatable. But the newer Deadbeat songs? Loser, Dracula and My Old Ways? Bangers. My second favorite song of the night might have been another oldie but goodie- Sundown Syndrome. Full goosebumps. Elephant transported me back to 1969.
And let’s not leave out New Person, Same Old Mistakes. Definitely cried. No shame. None.
Seeing your favorite artist up close is transcendent in this weirdly spiritual way. It’s like your inner 19-year-old, your current self, and your future self all pull up a chair at the same time. And sitting that close to Kevin? Honestly, I could’ve died right then and there and felt like I completed some kind of cosmic side quest. Luckily for my clients and my houseplants, I’m still here.
I don’t know how people do life without music. I really don’t. Tame Impala has been the soundtrack to my angst, my healing, my spirals, my recoveries, and the messy in-between moments for years… and probably always will be.
Here’s to the artists who unknowingly hold our hands through it all.
Here’s to 40 being the new 30 and feeling like front-row magic.
Lost in Yesterday,
LC
Vibe with Me LC 