(Photo by George Salisbury)
If one weren’t already familiar with the band’s usual stagecraft, the signals are immediate in regard to the visual spectacular to be imminently offered up by The Flaming Lips; a sign outside the hall details ‘Special FX’ including confetti, latex balls and strobe lighting, and even with some of their fans – there’s the sighting of two ladies dressed up as jellyfish, built in lights included – there are weird and wonderful sights to behold.
There’s a nice nod to locality as Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’ plays over the sound system before frontman Wayne Coyne strolls on to the stage and, with lung-straining assaults on his trumpet, provokes the night’s first instance of rapturous applause. Tonight is a gig of two halves: the Oklahoma group perform their 2002 critical and commercial apex Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in its entirety before a second half assortment of other material.
Opener ‘Flight Test’ is – despite its being rather redolent of Cat Stevens’ ‘Father and Son’ – a fine pop song dressed up in neo-psychedelia. As Stagehands erect inflatable versions of the album’s titular pink robots amidst colourful strobe lighting and a swarm of robot shaped confetti, there’s the implicit early promise that all tonight’s tracks will be festooned as such. After the soul-music-crossed-with-electro-rock of ‘One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21’, Coyne reveals his nights long obsession with unrelenting applause as he tells the audience to “keep it going, keep it going” for fear of it petering out.
Obviously, given The Flaming Lips’ longstanding modus operandi, one shouldn’t be surprised with the constant articles of decoration and Coyne’s unfailing cheerleading. However, it feels as some reverse synergy, like it’s detracting from the music. It’s hard to watch Coyne’s four bandmates play their instruments as they disappear behind giant pink inflatables or a large green latex ball, and the overall visual assault is one wherein the quality of the song’s feels somewhat secondary.
Of course, there are riveting moments where it all makes sense. Standout tune ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt.1’ has the stage crew manipulating the robots in a dancing motion while Coyne leads the audience into chanting the snappy backing vocal of ‘Hey, hey!” Later, Coyne suggests that audience members turn to a stranger next to them and declare their love (if we were deep into a ketamine binge at a festival rather than in a pristine concert hall there might have been more takers). This all leads into a brilliant and euphoric version of ‘Do You Realise?’ Coyne stands beneath an inflatable rainbow and the anthemic singalong is a poignant reminder that, paradoxically, life can be at its most affirming when exuberantly staring down its impermanence (“Do You Realise/That Everyone You Know Someday Will Die”)
Into the second half, ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ (from 1993, in more garage rock vein) sounds more defined compared to the gargantuan sonic mash of the Yoshimi performance, as a fizzing guitar riff pierces through loud and clear. Possibly a dozen large latex balls filled with confetti are launched into the crowd, and some punters seek to punch them back into the air with the zeal of someone partaking in an Olympic sport. ‘Flowers of Neptune 6,’ has Coyne now dressed as a flower and he recounts that the song was inspired by a Kacey Musgrave LSD hallucination that had her dance all night with a firefly.
Before ‘The Spark That Bled’ – floaty balladeering evolving into driving psychedelic rock – Coyne interacts with a member of the audience who is dressed as a unicorn. She tells him that this is her 85th Flaming Lips show. “That’s almost as many as me,” quips Coyne with decent comic timing. There are several audience cries expressing love for Coyne throughout; Before ‘Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung’, someone even bellows for a show of skin: “take your top off!”
We have a couple more costume changes and quirky mascot additions; during ‘Waiting For Superman’, Coyne is dressed in a Wonder Woman onesie and the high energy electronica of ‘Golden Path’ (performed on record with The Chemical Brothers) has Coyne joined on stage by an alien and a non-descript, spiky creature. Um, an anthropomorphised covid spike protein, perhaps?
The audience love for Coyne and his songs becomes more pronounced toward gig’s end and the relationship is nicely, if somewhat dramatically, given balance when he declares “I owe my whole life to you” in thanking his audience for the gift of still being able to perform for a living. He’s then joined on stage by the ever sporting stagehands dressed in eyeball suits, as Coyne proceeds to bounce a set of inflatable lips and teeth, in a thunderous singalong.
An encore includes a beautifully sprawling cover of Daniel Johnston’s ever-lovely ‘True Love Will Find You in the End.’ Its melody line is attractively picked out on keyboard and wonderfully embellished by ghostly whines of pedal steel. It’s a late reminder of the potency of music without all the visual trimmings. They’ve felt a bit garish, relentless and gimmicky but judging by the crowd’s joyful reaction to Coyne and his band, I might have to accept being in the minority on that one.
Scott Hammond