The Flaming Lips: A Review

Last Saturday marked my third time seeing The Flaming Lips. I didn’t think that any show of theirs could beat the second time I saw them, where I paid a mere $6 to witness an epic confetti-filled set in which Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite (who is apparently a Flaming Lips fan) danced on the side of the stage in a Santa Claus costume and then roused a double encore that included a Black Sabbath “War Pigs” cover. I was right in that that show could not be beat, but last Saturday was pretty damn entertaining.

The show was again $6 since it took place at the racetrack tourist magnet in Del Mar, California that I’ve mentioned in my previous posts. Stardeath and Seven Dwarfs opened the concert. They seemed a little nervous, but this was the first date of The Flaming Lips’ North American tour so I’m guessing that after a couple of shows they’ll get better. Otherwise they were pretty solid. The singer/guitarist was wearing a snazzy jumpsuit and had a firecracker attached to his guitar that he lit up halfway through the set, causing bluish green smoke to fill the stage. I was really into the drummer, he was the highlight of the band for me. At one point just him and the bassist were onstage jamming for two minutes, which was surprisingly not boring. My only complaint about Stardeath and Seven Dwarfs is that the sound was not up to par. I couldn’t hear the lyrics of the songs and any banter they tried to start up with the audience was indecipherable mumbling.

The lead singer of The Flaming Lips, Wayne Coyne had been teasing the audience for a good hour by coming to the front of the stage, raising his arms and then leaving. When it was finally time for them to actually play, they entered dramatically through the giant arch of lights that formed the backdrop of the stage. Each member of the band slowly descended one by one from the arch, like aliens from a sparkly UFO (how’s that for a metaphor). Then finally… Wayne came onstage. He crawled into his inflatable bubble and slowly rolled off the stage into the audience. BADASS. Rolling in a half circle Wayne made his way back to the stage and the band went straight into “Race for the Prize”. They ran through a set that included all of their classics, “The W.A.N.D.”, “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” and “She Don’t Use Jelly”. At one point a guy dressed in an ape suit picked up Wayne and put him on his (her?) shoulders. Wayne sang the rest of “Silver Trembling Hands” from the shoulders of the primate. EPIC. The show was filled with giant orange and yellow balloons and lots of streamers. The giant arch served as a projector for the camera on Wayne’s microphone and for some other stunning and slightly erotic visuals. My one disappointment was that they didn’t play their cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. The set seemed rather short too, only about ten songs. They did do an encore, but only of “Do You Realize”.

People have sometimes accused The Flaming Lips of relying too much on their stage antics; the balloons, streamers, confetti, flaming bullhorns, and the fans dancing in animal costumes. They’ve played pretty much the same setlist every time I’ve seen them. However, a band’s job is to entertain, and I have never been bored at a Flaming Lips show.