The Wiggles covered Tame Impala’s ‘Elephant’ on Triple J’s ‘Like A Version’ and WOW!
And some OGs are back!
Fans of the original Wiggles are all grown up, and hundreds of thousands of them tuned in to abc’s Triple J last year to hear their childhood faves perform live in studio for the Friday morning ‘Like a Version’ segment.
And today that performance took out the number one spot in the youth station’s annual Hottest 100 vote competition!
The current squad Anthony Field, Emma Watkins, Lachy Gillespie and Simon Pryce were joined by OGs, Murray Cook and Jeff Fatt to perform their own version of Tame Impala’s ‘Elephant’.
Scoring the entertainment juggernauts was no mean feat for the show’s hosts, Bryce and Ebony.
Globally the wiggles have sole 30 million DVDs and CDs, 8 million books and have amassed over two billion streams in the last two years. Triple J reports that they’re the only Australian band to fill Madison Square Garden several times over … and now they’re live in the studio performing to their grown up fans.
When asked how they were feeling Anthony answered: “Really great, Jeffy’s having a sleep, Muzza’s gettin’ the guitar ready.”
As for how they feel about their success and the longevity of the love from their fans, they’re grateful.
“You don’t go around thinking ‘We’re cultural icons’ or anything,” says Murray. “But I played with the DZ Deathrays at Splendour and the audience were all former Wiggles fans, because they were in their 20s.
“It’s great. I love it when people come up and say we were a big part of their childhood.”
♫ Shakin’ his big grey trunk for the hell of it ♫
For their cover they took on Aussie band, Tame Impala’s ‘Elephant’.
“We wanted to choose something Australian,” revealed Emma Wiggle. “For most of the time that we’ve had the honour of going to The ARIAs, we get to see Tame Impala a lot on stage.
“We’ve never really met them properly but we thought that we’d like to pay tribute to this amazing Australian band.”
“We know people take [Like A Version] very seriously,” says Anthony, “So we didn’t want to stuff it up. Also, it’s an amazing song, and it’s deceptively hard. I thought it was going to be like [Norman Greenbaum‘s] ‘Spirit In The Sky’ but you get into it and…the guy’s a genius!”
