At the start of the third song, the pulsing, throbbing, totally-engrossing “There Should Be Unicorns” Coyne disappeared from the stage and there was an extended instrumental guitar intro where you could tell that something was brewing. No Lips show is complete without outrageous props, and there were two at this show. Who, who goes through multiple outfit changes as the show goes along, and while the rest of the band keeps to the background of the stage. The secret weapon is the see-through curtain created at the front of the stage by a draping of beaded ropes that are multicolored and segmented to create a different mood for each song while still allowing you to see Coyne, who appears as part shaman, part wild-haired Professor, and part Dr. Every song has a visual setpiece and most have props. Their albums don’t even begin to scratch the surface of the wild party that the Lips throw on stage.įrom the opening salvo at the introductory “Race For The Prize” where they blew the giant confetti cannons spraying the crowd and releasing two nets filled with giant beach balls onto the crowd (that managed to stay inflated for about half the show) you know that you’re in for as much spectacle as music. The Flaming Lips’ shows are not really a concert in a conventional rock sense, they are a Communal Event Shared By Like-Minded People, a party where the hosts just happen to be playing music for a couple of hours. On a recent interview on the “Nerdist” podcast Doc-Brown-coiffed bandleader Wayne Coyne described the experience of how much nicer it is to have someone scratch your head than to scratch it yourself, and I suppose having your brain scratched by a lover is as apt a metaphor for a Flaming Lips show as I can come. I have trouble trusting music made by people who by mocking their music, and who actually seem to be having fun (!) playing it, seemed to me to be mocking their audience along the way.Īfter seeing the Flaming Lips at the 930 Club in Washington DC on their Oczy Mlody tour, though, I’ll never think that way again. ![]() I tend to prefer Serious Music by Serious Musicians, who in my mind are usually distinguished by their all-black outfits (with flannel as an allowed exception), dour music and sour expressions. ![]() ![]() It’s the problem that I’ve often had with self-consciously “arty” projects, whether in music, art, theatre or literature. ![]() From their ragged early years as an Oklahoma-based indie band through to their early 1990s alternative breakthrough with “She Don’t Use Jelly” to 1999’s unlikely fluke hit “Do You Realize?” and their commercial apex during the early 2000s, I could never quite tell whether the Lips, and leader Wayne Coyne in particular, really believed what they were putting out or whether they were putting one over on the audience. I’ll be honest right up front – over the 30-plus years that I’ve known about the Flaming Lips I’d liked and loathed them in equal measure. Wayne Coyne and merry pranksters The Flaming Lips create day-glow art out of artifice in an all-comers party in Washington DC on the heels of their strongest album in years.
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