What Is It Like to See Empire Of The Sun Live?

You're Watching Half the Band, and That's the Point

Empire Of The Sun is a duo on record and a one-frontman band on stage. Nick Littlemore has declined to tour since the band's first shows in 2009, explaining "I've always felt that once you make a record it's not yours anymore" (Music Feeds). Steele treats the absence as material rather than a sore spot: at the sold-out Kings Theatre show in Brooklyn in November 2024, the stage set included a giant reclining sculpted bust said to resemble Littlemore (Bowery Presents). Fans who know the history laugh. First-timers spend a song wondering who the enormous head is supposed to be.

The Emperor Wardrobe Is a Show of Its Own

Steele performs in floor-length robes and headpieces that reviewers have compared to "a futuristic Japanese samurai emperor" (Pittsburgh Music Magazine) and Ming the Merciless. This look has defined the show since the Walking on a Dream era, and it changes roughly four times a night. At Kings Theatre in 2024 he cycled through a red robe and headdress, a sleeveless black latex robe with a wide-brim hat, a white robe and headpiece, and a white floor-length longhaired coat (Bowery Presents). Even the guitars are color-matched to the outfits, a detail the crowd at The Anthem in Washington DC clocked in 2025 (Pittsburgh Music Magazine). You spend half the night watching the stage like a runway.

The Dancers Are Not Background

The two masked dancers enter ritualistically from opposite wings and change costumes nearly as often as Steele does. During "Cherry Blossom" they appear in geisha looks. At the Santa Barbara Bowl in September 2025, they came out in mirror-covered leotards for the instrumental break in "We Are the People" and turned into human disco balls under the strobes (Santa Barbara Independent). Reviewers across a decade of shows, from the Two Vines club era to the 2025 amphitheater run, keep saying the same thing: they could not stop watching the dancers (Third Coast Review, Santa Barbara Independent). Split your attention accordingly.

Steele Shreds, and Nobody Sees It Coming

The synth-pop records hide it, but Steele can genuinely play. At the 2025 Anthem show in DC he tacked extended solos onto the end of "Half Mast," and the reviewer reached for Prince comparisons (Pittsburgh Music Magazine). He works a small keyboard at a front-center station while still holding the guitar (US Rocker). The live arrangements land heavier than the albums, with "DNA" and "High and Low" gaining the most from the live bass. If you came expecting a guy pressing play over visuals, the guitar work is the first thing that recalibrates you.

A Costumed, All-Ages Dance Floor

The crowd arrives in bright colors, face paint, and homemade versions of the band's headdresses. At the 2025 Santa Barbara Bowl show the reviewer counted "an unexpected amount of kids in the crowd, including a toddler in Empire regalia who sang along to nearly every song" (Santa Barbara Independent). The physical mode is dancing, not moshing. One DC reviewer described the floor as "a singular pulsating entity" (Pittsburgh Music Magazine), and fans in TikTok recaps of the 2025 shows said they wished they could "bottle up the energy and joy of the crowd." The dominant feeling is escapism, stepping into the band's built world for 90 minutes, rather than catharsis or nostalgia-weeping.

The Guitar Dies So "Alive" Can Close

"Alive" has closed the show across the Ice on the Dune, Two Vines, and Ask That God eras (setlist.fm), and the guitar smash before it is the other locked-in ritual. Steele went full 80s rock star and smashed his guitar to bits at Pacific Amphitheatre in July 2016 (US Rocker). At Kings Theatre in 2024 he destroyed one to punctuate "Standing on the Shore," then staged "Alive" as a resurrection, finishing under golden confetti and marigold leis (Bowery Presents). The sequence is the payoff of the whole night. People who slip out early to beat traffic miss the best five minutes.

The biggest era of the band's career, and by far the busiest. After Ask That God (2024) ended an eight-year album gap, the band played a short US and Mexico run in September 2024, an Australian homecoming that October and November with an all-Australian support lineup (Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne; The Music), and a sold-out Kings Theatre closer in Brooklyn on November 26, 2024 (Bowery Presents). The 2025 world tour that followed ran 60 shows, the most they have ever played in a year (setlist.fm), with sold-out stops at the Anthem in DC, Radius in Chicago, the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, and the Santa Barbara Bowl.

A Staged Spiritual Journey

The show opens with a lightning storm on the giant LED wall, the two dancers marching in from opposite wings, and Steele appearing between them in a red robe and headdress for "Changes" (Bowery Presents). From there the visuals run like a fever-dream travelogue: a zebra casually lying beside Steele on screen during "We Are the People," a wall of TV sets for "Television," and Steele perched on giant clasped-hands set pieces in a white robe while an outstretched god-hand slowly reaches toward him during "Ask That God." The Santa Barbara Independent described props evoking "a far-off temple lost to time," with LED journeys running from bamboo forests to outer space. Chicago's Radius show added a giant inflatable head (Third Coast Review). None of it is explained. All of it lands.

Supa Chai Is the Breakout Character

Mid-show, a costumed dancer in a white jellyfish-mushroom-squid suit appears and "converses" with Steele in an unintelligible synthesized squabble that reviewers compared to the adults in Charlie Brown, then leads the dance party into "Music on the Radio" (Santa Barbara Independent, Bowery Presents). The character is spelled SUPA CHAI on setlists and has its own entry (setlist.fm). First-timers consistently call it the strangest segment of the night. Fans love it enough that the official store sells a Supa Chai tee.

The Setlist Splits Even Between Eras

Expect roughly an even split of Ask That God material and hits from the first three albums (Third Coast Review). The averaged 2025 set ran: "Changes," "The Feeling You Get," "Half Mast," "Cherry Blossom," "We Are the People," "Way to Go," "DNA," "Television," "Music on the Radio," "Revolve," "High and Low," "Swordfish Hotkiss Night," "Ask That God," "Happy Like You," "Walking on a Dream," "Standing on the Shore," "Alive" (setlist.fm, 29 of 32 logged shows). That order barely moved all tour. Treat it as the program, not a prediction.

The 2026 Afterlife Leg

The European run went May 31, 2026 (Unity Arena, Oslo) through July 5 (Rockhal, Luxembourg) across 17 countries, announced to "Empyreans of Europe" with the line "The Empire Returns" (NME). It included the band's biggest-ever UK headline show at London's Alexandra Palace on June 27, with a stage production built specifically for that venue (NME). The North American leg, billed as a reimagined live show, runs August 11, 2026 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre through October 9 in Las Vegas, hitting Forest Hills Stadium, the Hollywood Bowl on October 8, and amphitheaters across the continent, wrapped around festival slots at Lollapalooza, Osheaga, and Outside Lands (Consequence, Campus Circle). Polo & Pan and Midnight Generation support the headline dates.

The Fan Verdict: All Killer, Over Too Fast

The reviews from this era run unusually hot. The DC reviewer called it "one of the best concerts I have ever seen live" (Pittsburgh Music Magazine), the Chicago reviewer said the band somehow topped its own 2019 shows (Third Coast Review), and TikTok fan recaps rated 2025 stops "100/10." The one recurring gripe: the set "seemed to end a little too fast" (Third Coast Review). At 1h 30m with zero filler, fans wanting a marathon will not get one. Fans wanting a dense spectacle with no bathroom-break songs will.