The Flaming Lips
Festival Hall, Melbourne, 28 July 2009
Where would you find a use for ladies dressed as kittens, gorillas, frogs, balloons and confetti all in the one place? A Flaming Lips show!
Renowned as the best (yes that's right not just one of the best), The Flaming Lips are so much more than a couple of guitars and attitude.
The Oklahoma band, which has been harnessing the sounds of psychedelia for over two decades now, took a detour from their show at Splendour in Grass to present a "psychedelic spectacular" at Festival Hall.
Formed in 1983, the group toiled away for well over a decade before releasing their critically acclaimed LP The Soft Bulletin in 1999. Soon after the band released two more highly praised albums, and earned high praise for their live shows along the way.
The show starts with an amazing light and sound show that almost blinds the audience. Out of nowhere as if the sun rising, front man Wayne Coyne appears in a bubble (somewhat of a tradition these days) and lopes across the audience inside it.
The crowd's excitement is palpable in its attempts to get near the bubble. As Coyne attempts to get back to land from the sea of hands, vibrant coloured balls and confetti fall from the ceiling. The crowd is in raptures.
They start with "Race for the Prize", from The Soft Bulletin, followed by "Silver Trembling Hands", and the crowd loves it. But the concert shifts a gear when the band plays "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song", a crowd favourite. The balls are bouncing, the confetti is flowing, and the crowd is in ecstasy.
It seems as if the Flaming Lips have trained their fans to associate them not just with surreal pop and electric light-music orchestras, but with an entire mindset: big grins, scantily clad women in kitten uniforms, and visions of multicoloured balls gliding across the audience. Everything seems to complement one another. It makes for a spectacular show.
The band finish with an encore of "Do You Realise?" It's just one of the songs everyone loves and as a result the atmosphere is almost wet with excitement. The synthed-up melody is the perfect way to end a show full of outlandish psychedelia and freakiness.
4.5 out of 5
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