Warning: Empire of the Sun Does Not Want You to Read This Review 

“Don’t listen to the media; listen to God” were the parting words from Empire of the Sun’s front man Luke Steele as the band capped off an electrifying set at the Santa Barbara Bowl on September 28. I may not agree with Steele’s advice, but I couldn’t deny Empire’s ability to put on a helluva show: For 90-ish minutes, the band held Santa Barbara captive with its over-the-top eclecticism in both sight and sound. 

Truth be told, my familiarity with Australia’s Empire of the Sun did not extend past its breakout hit, “Walking on a Dream,” a track in such heavy rotation on KJEE one would think it came out in the last year — I was floored to discover it was, in fact, the title track from their 2008 debut album. Talk about continued ubiquity. I was soon acquainted with Empire’s broader catalogue, including many tracks from their most recent record, 2024’s Ask That God, punctuated with a healthy dose of greatest hits throughout the set.

[Click to zoom] Empire of the Sun, Santa Barbara Bowl, September 28, 2025 | Photo: Carl Perry

The band’s fan base showed up in force, clad in bright colors and decorated with face makeup to imitate Steele’s iconic look: a horizontal stripe of color punctured by a memorable amount of eyeliner (see Carl Perry’s superb photography). I noted there were an unexpected amount of kids in the crowd, including a toddler behind me in Empire regalia who sang along to nearly every song and, quite frankly, put my dance moves to shame. 

Though the band is, at its core, the creative collaboration between Steele and Nick Littlemore (who predominantly played guitar the whole evening), its live show includes a drummer and keys player to fill out its larger-than-life synth-pop sound. The full lineup brought energy to spare, treating the stage of the Santa Barbara Bowl like its own personal Super Bowl Halftime Show. Every song had the audience enthralled and moving, from 2013’s “Alive” to the more-recent “Cherry Blossom.” 

The band was highly complimentary of the Bowl itself and Santa Barbara at large, calling the latter “the Switzerland of California.” (The crowd loved that.) Regarding the former, Steele marveled at Paul McCartney’s visit to the venue mere days before (the crowd loved that), saying it was an honor to be on the same stage as the music legend.

Known for their striking costuming and elaborate stage design/visual show, Empire was as enjoyable to the eyes as it was to the ears, with props that gave the vibe of a far-off temple lost to time. Steele, ever the showman, donned a bright red gown and headdress, asserting himself as emperor of the proceedings without even saying a word. An enormous LED screen behind the performers took viewers on a mesmerizing journey synced to sound, from bamboo forests to outer space. A pair of masked dancers, in seemingly constant costume rotation, helped the crowd achieve its weekly cardio needs through osmosis alone. A personal highlight of the show came during an instrumental break in Empire’s hit “We Are the People,” when the stage went dark and the dancers were hit with a focused strobe light, revealing mirror-covered leotards and transforming them into human disco balls. Trés chic.

The strangest segment of the show, by far, involved a costumed side character named Suppachai. Contextual clues (as well as post-show research) told me that this was a staple of Empire’s performance as Steele “‘conversed” with the part jellyfish/part mushroom-suited dancer, the latter responding in a squabbled and unintelligible voice not unlike the adults in Charlie Brown, though decidedly forced through something like a synthesizer. As the band launched into their next song, Suppachai made the stage its playground and properly danced its ass off — assuming it had one.

And I think that’s one of the best parts of Empire’s show, everyone was having fun. Steele, as he cut back and forth across the stage, leading the band in song and dance. Audience members, rocking face makeup and singing along to all of the words. And me, a member of the media, dancing with abandon and knowing that I’d be impossibly pressed to construe Empire of the Sun’s show as anything other than a damn good time for everyone.