Show Review: Empire of the Sun @ ACL Live (8/1)

Big show. Big spectacle. Big dance party. Big sponsor? Uh oh.

Empire of the Sun puts on a display. From dancers scurrying to the far corners of the stage in some sort of concert-styled drill team/pep squad fueled choreography to giant LED panels with visuals of blissful jams, the duo out of Australia gives you an experience worth buying a ticket for. Mrs. IT Dept. was very excited to see Empire of the Sun who left a pretty strong impression after ACL a few years back and there is no other venue in Austin I would rather see them than ACL Live.

The sound was great. The light was great. The band was great. …but we got short-setted.

Read on to see pretty pictures and get the down low.

Austin’s Whiite Walls got to put down a short opening set of funk and disco fueled jams. Their big bass lines, some sweet guitar fills and plenty of vocal interplay get the early arrivers moving. They also got to be the test subjects for the occasionally blinding LED panels as the video crews for the Bud Light 50/50/1. We weren’t allowed to shoot the openers (couple phone pics in the gallery). Sorry, guys and gal. If I were having a big summer party, this band would play it. Get some ear candy here.

A very large portion of the crowd paid to see the band not really knowing what was up with the beer commercial part of the night. Tours have sponsors, fine. We find out it will be a live broadcast. Again, not a big deal. I had to wear black to get access to the photo pit. I have had weirder requests, still fine. Set starts at 9pm. Great. Set ends at 10pm. Wait, what? That is a shorter set than Empire of the Sun had at ACL Fest two years ago. Was it Bud Light? Was it the band? Not sure, but the time constraint of an hour appears to be consistent with the other 50/50/1 shows. Bummer.

Back to the concert part of this. Empire of the Sun makes no bones about the fact they are a studio production. The live show is a theatrical performance with select elements done live. What is done live is pretty damn good. The band is short one Nick Littlemore, evidently sitting out the current tour. The band introduced as the duo from Australia was really just Luke Steele and the backing guitars and drums of Surahn Sidhu and Tony Mitolo, respectively. Oops, Bud Light announcer lady. I’ll admit I didn’t notice half the Empire was missing until processing pics, mainly because Luke is a showman. Metal headdress, eye makeup and a Prince-like stage manner all add up to your eye just following him around the stage. Curious why Nick deciding against joining in.

The hits were the hits. “Ice on the Dune” was a gem. “Alive” was a crowd fave late. “DNA” is probably the most well-crafted track on the new album. But those all fell short of the older material like “We are the People” and “Standing on the Shore”. “Walking on a Dream” is just so infectious with three-thousand friends. You can see the show playing on a loop here. I watched the first three to catch a glimpse of my pretty mug.

Yes, we all lived like we were in a beer commercial…

More pics at the photo site…