Psychedelic Porn Crumpets Rock El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles for Last Stop on U.S. Tour

LOS ANGELES, CA – The Australian rock band Psychedelic Porn Crumpets made their last U.S. stop on Wednesday, November 2nd at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles with supporting act Acid Dad from New York, and the almost sold out crowd was buzzing from the very first moments of being let into the venue.

It’s probably because Australian bands not named AC/DC or The Bee Gees don’t always get a chance to tour the United States, and when they do, it’s usually a limited run or part of a few festivals.

This was simply a full Psychedelic Porn Crumpets headlining tour, and it was one fans of the band had been waiting a long time for since the COVID pandemic didn’t allow the band to tour for their last album in 2021, Shyga! The Sunlight Mound, and the band had already released a brand new album this year called Night Gnomes.

It’s not often that a band gets to do a tour for TWO albums at the same time, but that’s exactly what happened.

The night was kicked off by the rock trio Acid Dad who last released an album in 2021 called Take It From The Dead, have had some pretty big ups and downs as a band ranging from having their home studio destroyed by Hurricane Ida to playing this U.S. tour with Psychedelic Porn Crumpets and festivals since then.

The band has a pretty subdued stage presence relying more on the emotions of the songs to drive the crowd’s energy. They aren’t afraid of a rock breakdown here or there though.

They played for about 30 minutes with songs that seemed to push the 5 minute mark pretty often, but there were a couple of songs on their set that were a bit more uptempo and got the crowd engaged.

I am not all that familiar with their songs to know the ones they played by name, but I will say that for a band with two guitarist/vocalists (no bass player, at least not at this show) it was pretty interesting to see them trading off solos and vocals throughout their set.

The trippy psychedelic visualizer art coming from the projector helped to enhance the experience (I assume even more so for those who would’ve been on hallucinogens).

Psychedelic Porn Crumpets came up shortly after that as there was no other support or opener for this show which had a late start at 9pm, but because only two bands played, it was over before midnight (which I was thankful for but also surprised by). 

Before coming to the stage, I happened to see the band taking a ceremonial shot of some sort of liquor as the curtain in front of the photo pit was cracked ever so slightly.

Minutes later, the band’s unofficial mascot Rodney the Turtle – a toy turtle that the band had been discussing in posts on social media because he was actually taken from them at a show in Atlanta but returned to them at this show – opened the show by sitting on a stool with a microphone and a spotlight as operatic music crescendoed through the house speakers and the rest of the band took the stage.

The band took it from there launching into “Tally Ho!” which is the first non-intro song on their Shyga! album, and they absolutely rocked it. I am a pretty big fan of that whole album, and it was a great starter song.

Now, the band did play music from all of their catalog which meant getting some of the jam songs like “Cubensis Lenses” which can go on for a while – something American crowds seem to be increasingly resistant to – but the Crumpets know how to keep the audience engaged by throwing in some rad breakdowns throughout their set or just flat out rocking hard throughout a song.

A great example of a song that rocks pretty much throughout is one of their most popular songs, “Hymn for a Droid” off their album And Now For The Whatchamacallit (which was the last album they put out before the pandemic and is a great album as well).

They played through some of their most streamed songs like “November” and “Mr. Prism” as well which got the crowd excited.

I can’t think of a bad song during their whole set, but I do remember thinking to myself, “How much ‘jam set’ would they put into their show versus some of their more tight-knit rock songs?” 

I would say it was definitely a good mix with something like 70/30 on the more uptempo songs (just a guess) and at one point right when I started to sense a bit of a lull in the crowd’s energy from a solo, the band jumped back into a chorus and got everyone back up.

The Psychedelic Porn Crumpets actually do have a lot of uptempo, high energy songs which is kinda weird for the genre they play in, but it’s one of the main reasons I am such a fan of these guys.

The show absolutely ripped, and lead singer Jack McEwan ended their main set by saying, “We’re Tame Impala. Thank you, good night.” It’s a reference to another band from their area in Australia (Western Australia) who sort of got a lot of notoriety a few years back, and McEwan has jokingly compared themselves to in the past.

Oddly, I am not sure if L.A. fans are confused about what happens at a rock show or what, but about 50-75 people (maybe more) headed for the door after their last song even though it is highly customary for the last band to play an encore.

The vast majority of the crowd stuck around chanting, “One more song.” 

I was actually surprised when the Porn Crumpets actually came back on and ONLY played one more song. Sort of a refreshing take on the encore, because not only did the fans call for it to happen, they literally didn’t add 2-3 songs like most bands.

I can’t explain to you how good this band is in words really. You are going to have to listen to a lot of their music, and then go see them live to really know what I mean.

It was also good to see that most of the crowd was YOUNGER than I am. It’s a good sign that rock music isn’t dying in the U.S. It’s just hiding and waiting to come back.