In the final stage of their comeback run following 2024’s Ask That God, Australian electronic duo Empire of the Sun drew on nearly 20 years of music and performed a resurrection for their LA stop at the Hollywood Bowl this past Thursday on the Afterlife world tour. The duo closed the tour at the same venue where they launched their Ask That God tour run back in 2024, which brought the whole era full circle. As history has proven time and time again, Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore are no strangers to rebirths. We had the pleasure of catching them at Just Like Heaven in 2023, a year before the new album arrived, and again when they returned to the Just Like Heaven stage in 2025.
The tour began with the aforementioned album, their first in eight years, and reintroduced a band that gradually took the world by storm with “Walking On A Dream.” A modest hit when the song and the debut album of the same name were released, it became a phenomenon around 2016 and rewrote itself into the 2000s as one of the era’s grandest anthems. Then came the car commercials, 2x Platinum certification in the U.S., a performance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” you name it.
And just like that, they vanished. During that hiatus, Steele and Littlemore focused on other side projects and recovered from burnout. Still, another generation of fans waited on TikTok to rediscover them, this time digging out “Alive,” “We Are The People,” and several other songs alongside “Walking On A Dream,” which came on toward the end of the concert and garnered a hypnotic singalong from the Bowl crowd.
So, where does this leave Empire of the Sun today? Well, they’re most definitely not a one-hit wonder. At the same time, this past week’s show reminded us there’s still plenty of room for the duo to keep experimenting and pushing themselves. Fortunately, their set functioned as a best-of compilation and a testing ground for new music.
Before that, there were a few stops around the world leading up to Empire of the Sun. As an Australian band proudly showing love for the States, with Steele going so far as to perform a quick cover of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” halfway through their set, they brought Mexico’s Midnight Generation and France’s Polo & Pan. For those who grew up with Empire or discovered them in the past few years, their already wide range of influences served as the perfect runway for two groups from vastly different worlds.
Despite pulling from other inspirations outside of Empire’s typical wheelhouse, Midnight Generation shares that genre-bending tendency, as shown during their opener slot and Hollywood Bowl debut.
Bookmarked by radio transmissions akin to the concept behind Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf, the set cleverly acknowledged their dance and funk influences without taking away from the fun they were having on stage. Even if you’re unfamiliar with Parliament-Funkadelic or The Gap Band, hearing an instrument like the talkbox on songs like “Don’t Wait Up” will make your ears perk up.
The same philosophy applies to “Runaways,” which, whether intentional or not, comes off like the band reverse-engineering a Daft Punk song by recreating the ‘70s rhythms the duo sampled in their heyday. That’s not an insult, far from it. If anything, putting those sonic textures front and center lets modern audiences reckon with what made mainstream hits like “Uptown Funk” so big by centering your identity around that music’s DNA. All during a breezy, short-and-sweet set.
As was the DJ set from Polo & Pan, not “pollo and pan,” as someone nearby shouted. If Midnight Generation traced its musical lineage back to a specific era, then Polo & Pan are the definition of crate diggers.
Their song selection and inspirations are so varied that your best bet for pinpointing them is spinning a globe and dropping your finger at random. Whether it’s the dancehall riddim of “Pili Pili” (think Pitbull’s “Culo” for reference) or the Kraftwerk-esque opening beat resembling a catwalk instrumental with a bullwhip crack, they clearly have an ear for sonic textures.
More importantly, their brand of tropical house is the sort of feel-good electronic music Empire similarly delivers, albeit by way of lounge-style club settings rather than mind-bending visuals. By this time, the Bowl was as packed as can be. For some, the dress code was a cross between Coachella in the fall with sprinkles of ren faire–appropriate, given LA was coming out of multiple days in the triple digits. Empire of the Sun, indeed.
To kick off their set, Steele, dressed like he just stepped off the set of “Big Trouble in Little China,” performed a new song. “Desire,” a far different track from anything they’ve ever released, thanks to its jazzercise-style synthpop, took people by surprise. With Steele singing in a higher pitch better suited to a power-pop group than Empire’s typical sound, “Desire” reminded the audience to stay on their toes.
From there, Steele and co. settled into what you’d expect from an Empire concert. Surrounded by blow-up marble heads and masked dancers changing outfits as often as Steele himself, the tight show balanced colorful sci-fi opera theatrics with clear talent on display. Even with what looked to be AI visuals in the background, which may affect how much you enjoy the overall experience.
“Changes” from Ask That God was much closer to the speed the audience was used to, partly thanks to Steele’s more familiar, nasal vocal register. But the first singalong for everyone was “Half Mast,” off of their debut.
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While the original song might not have as many plays as “Walking On A Dream” or “We Are The People,” its chorus is just as recognizable thanks to being sampled by Mac Miller’s “The Spins,” a song that was rereleased some years ago and took off on–you guessed it–TikTok. It was topped with an electrifying guitar solo equal parts abrasive and energizing, even if it was topped by a guitar-keyboard duel later on during “Music on the Radio.”
Speaking of “We Are the People,” the song made for the night’s peak, likely because it’s become so popular recently and is far bouncier than “Walking On A Dream.” It also had one of the flashiest theatrics, with Steele and the two dancers lighting up like disco balls during a digitized rendition of the “I know everything about you” bridge. And with the thundering drums jump-starting back into the chorus, it made for a well-executed revival of an Empire classic.
Afterward, Steele took the time to talk to an amped-up Bowl, calling it his “favorite venue in all of planet Earth.” He even shared that, while living in LA, he went to a show at the Bowl about 20 years ago and sat at the very top. He remembered thinking during that show how he hoped to perform on that stage one day.
Three concerts at the Bowl later, it’s safe to say Steele made his dream come true, and then some. But if time has shown anything about Empire of the Sun, it’s that there’s more for the duo to explore. And since they’ve been testing new songs on this tour, it looks like they’re planning to stay rather than wait for the world to bring them back together.
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