Empire of the Sun at Morton Amphitheater, Riverside (Kansas City), MO (2026-08-16)

Desire
Changes
Half Mast
Old Flavours
Cherry Blossom
We Are the People
Television
Awakening
High and Low
Music on the Radio
Revolve
Swordfish Hotkiss Night
Two Vines
Celebrate
I’ll Be Around
Walking on a Dream
Tiger by My Side
Alive

M to the G
Teacher
Oh Baby
Ghosts
Premium Delivery
Almost My Own
Energy
Runaways
Don’t Wait Up

There are concerts and then there is an Asian-influenced inter-planetary, time-traveling, consciousness shifting wonderment-

Australian electronic pop duo Empire of the Sun somehow managed to combine both at a Kansas City area stop on their current On the Ask That God: Afterlife Tour, in support of their 2024 LP Ask That God (first new album in eight years, via EMI Australia/Capitol Records). This leg of the tour began on August 11 at Red Rocks and will wrap in Las Vegas on October 9 and is said to be the “final installment” of the Ask That God journey.

The electronic disco synth-pop duo of Luke Steele (also in The Sleepy Jackson) and Nick Littlemore (who also heads group Pnau and does not perform live w/Empire of the Sun) has never taken the minimalist approach to their live presentation (we saw a comparatively scaled-down version in Mpls back in 2013) and describing this current iteration as just ‘out of this world’ doesn’t begin to give it proper justice.

The stage design is a candy-colored pastel planetscape, set like a space-age bonsai garden in which Steele is a futuristic Fu Manchu in some 23^rd century kabuki fever dream. There’s Sun and Moon Goddesses, human disco balls, lovable Supa Chai squid creatures, immersive lighting, and much more.

Steele remains front and center as the extravagant celestial spectacle revolves around him, dressed in some variance of his stage regalia (starting with red, then going through black, silver, and white variants), with signature eyeliner and a white horizontal streak across his face. The music may be ‘the cake’ in this presentation, but ‘the icing’ is oh-so interesting, without being completely overtaking.

Musically, the setlist leans heavy into the newest album but also includes enough of the previous material in a naturally unfolding flow, that the whole, seems like a well-thought-out journey. “Desire” from the new record, opens the show and immediately sets the larger-than-life theme and “Half Mast” was likely familiar to the younger audience, from its sampling by the late Mac Miller on his 2010 breakout hit, “The Spins.”

“Cherry Blossom” featured an intro where Steele answers a phone as an echoing and looming voice commands us to “Go beyond the screen” and “Enter the mirror.” Before the opening synths of “We Are the People,” a song about time and space, and love and redemption, the large video backdrop switches to being next to a snow-white tiger, prowling in its enclosure.

Steele changed into a silver jacket while retaining his head dress as the background statues from the screen came to life as mirrored disco ball dancers and a massive strobe light display as they moved, sent shards of reflective light out into the crowd everywhere.

“Television” found the video backdrop transformed into 8-screen banks on each side, framing a large central TV, with Steele wailing away as feedback and guitar fuzz filled the air while smoke from carried rippled tubes enveloped the stage.

“High and Low” and “Music on the Radio” had Steele changed into a more Mongolian look, in a black faux fur top as winged dancers were directly behind him as he sang. He seemed very Prince-influenced during a few of his extended guitar solos (such as during “Swordfish Hotkiss Night”), proving that the Purple One, gone from this earth for a decade now, still has his imprint on worlds and galaxies beyond.

The grounds of the venue seemed ready for takeoff during the band’s initial and signature hit, “Walking on a Dream” with its spinning planet prelude and ‘touching hand of God’ with Steele in long white sokutai style coat.

We particularly enjoyed the Prince- “Erotic City”-inspired sound of ‘Tiger By My Side’” and Steele appeared reborn, adorned in Buddhist floral leis with hands held to the sky before the apex of the set closing “Alive”, a euphoric and life-affirming anthem that positively culminated this otherworldly musical and visual experience.​​​

French DJ duo Polo & Pan brought their tropical house and dreamlike dance soundscapes, that transform a Midwest outdoor amphitheater into a Parisian club for fifty-five minutes, in support of their latest album 22:22, released last March.

The pair of Paul Armand-Delille and Alexandre Grynszpanm who formed in 2012 at club Le Baron, has a stage name said to combine “Polo,” Armand-Delille’s short nickname, with “Peter Pan,” representing Grynszpan and a whimsical, youthful, and fantasy-driven spirit.

While not quite a “Paris is Burning” style set, the band does have a very European feel to their mix, incorporating snippets of 1950s French songs, elegant Ravel and Debussy-inspired movements, and had a breezy (dare we say laissez faire?) blend of different genres, all as the video backdrop showed primary-colored geometric shapes in motion and French modernique flowing designs.​​​​​