Backstage: shooting Tame Impala at Accor Arena, Paris

Some shows you shoot. Some shows you solve. Tame Impala at Accor Arena in February 2026 was the second kind · a production built on lasers, mirrors, haze, and a band that has perfected the slow build. The light does not peak when the song peaks. It peaks four bars later, and if you have not learned the set, you are always four bars behind.

Arena shows flatten most photography into the same wide shot: tiny figure, big screen. The way out is to treat the production as the subject. Kevin Parker's stage design is generous to a camera that waits · laser planes that slice the haze into geometry, mirror moments that double the stage, a crowd that becomes a texture when the strobes hit.

Available light only, no flash · which at this show is like saying you will only drink at a vineyard. The light show is the photograph. The job is to be standing in the right place when it happens.

Then Justice walked out. The Neverender collaboration, live, in Paris, both acts on one stage · the kind of moment that happens once and does not wait for your exposure settings. Frames like that are why preparation matters more than gear: when the crowd realizes what is happening, you have a few seconds where the room's energy is visible, and then everyone's phone is up and the moment belongs to ten thousand screens.

That frame went around. It is also the first thing you see on the photography page · because proof beats promises.