Sasquatch 2015, Day 4: Tame Impala

Although it was their third time at the festival, Tame Impala's Sasquatch 2015 set was their first appearance at the Gorge that was both planned and executed smoothly. They were a last minute replacement in 2010 and an airline misplacing their gig forced the band to play the far-too-small Yeti stage at midnight in 2013, so when the Perth quintet arrived on the main stage to one of the biggest crowds of the weekend at their scheduled start time, it was even more triumphant of a coronation. Because that's what Kevin Parker and company's Monday evening set was: a resounding affirmation that Tame Impala is quickly approaching the upper echelons of rock bands from both a commercial and creative perspective. Their forthcoming album, Currents, is undoubtedly one of the year's most anticipated LPs, and judging by the tracks released up to this point, it could very well rival Parker's best work. While the band aired two of those tracks ("Let It Happen" and "Eventually"), their set was carried muscular and occasionally rearranged tracks from the band's 2012 masterstroke Lonerism, and it's the performances of the latter that showed just how deft of a live band Tame Impala are. It's rare that a band gets bigger as they're getting better, but Tame Impala are in that enviable position, and as the final run of "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" and "Apocalypse Dreams" rang out over the Gorge, it felt like a sign that the band's trajectory can only keep skyrocketing for the foreseeable future.