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My boyfriend and I watched a chunk of the first episode of The Voice. If you don’t know it by name, The Voice is a new singing competition reality program à la American Idol with a "twist": what makes this program different from shows of a similar nature - and what they endlessly emphasize in the promotional material - is that while a contestant is singing, the judges (Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera and some generic new country guy) face away from the stage. This way they can judge singers on their talent in a totally non-superficial way, which, as host Carson Daly unenthusiastically claims, "makes this show so important." Apparently this first episode had ridiculously high ratings, but I predict its failure within about two weeks. Think about it: how can this gimmick of refusing to judge contestants on a superficial basis, the gimmick that drew viewers in initially, continue throughout the whole program? The judges and audience have seen what the contestants look like, so where could it go from here? The element that differentiates this show from others has been obliterated within the first episode or two. What a completely unsustainable premise.

Why do I feel the need to discuss the inherent flaws of a reality show’s premise and structure? Because, perhaps naively, I figured “show at 8” meant just that, but considering this wasn’t the case on the evening of April 30th, I’m desperate for something mildly interesting to write about in this review. Upon my arrival at Café Campus around 8:15, I had missed the first two bands scheduled to open for Tame Impala that evening. I’m just glad I didn’t pay for a ticket like everybody else.

Overall, I was impressed by Tame Impala’s performance. It started out rather blandly, a sort of amalgamation of palatable 70’s rock and funk that wasn’t incredibly interesting and half as heavy as I had hoped. I got the psychedelic undertones, mostly presented in the form of “whoa-man that’s trippy” guitar effects. At first, they mostly played songs I could only describe as “soaring” without any precursory buildup or tension, which ends up being a pretty boring note to dwell on. In addition, the laptop on stage being used as a digital guitar pedal kind of threw off the band’s "groovy vibe." The musicianship itself seemed impressive, but we all know I don’t really give a shit about that part.

As the set went on, the songs got heavier and more intense, living up to my expectations of totally rad stoner rock. The songs flowed into each other well and the set became more dynamic, resulting in some serious head banging in the crowd. I was glad I didn’t step out early believing I had caught the gist of the set because it just kept escalating in awesomeness. It was loud, it was kind of sludgy but still accessible and it was a definite crowd pleaser.

I missed openers Yuck and Yawn, but so did everyone else. Tame Impala made us all forget that maybe, just maybe, we were playing second fiddle to Café Campus’ Saturday night clubbing extravaganza and that maybe, just maybe, supporting up and coming artists isn’t quite as important and bumpin’ and grindin’ to last summer’s Hot 100 MP3s. Remember when it was all about the music, man?

-Kelly K hosts Cut Your Hair and Get a Job every Tuesday from 1-2pm