Happiness makes you cry

Inspiration: Flaming Lips show

Created: Fri 6 Feb 2004 16:03

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There were giant balloons, people dressed up in animals suits, Santa, specially prepared video montages, an alien, confetti, nun dolls, Teletubbies, a dove, foglights, fake blood. And there was The Flaming Lips! Last week at the Palace, they put on one of the most unusual and awesome shows that I have ever attended.

Their newest album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots has been one of my favourite feel-good spins since I got it, and with their live show, it's all about the experience, not just the music. There's so much going on that it's impossible to be bored at any point. And looking around you, there's people all over the place with cheeky little grins on their faces, everyone being in the same mindset: this is something special. A week and a day later, I'm still thinking about how great the show was.

Okay, so maybe you had to be there. But aside from the super cool tunes, there was something else in the air (and it wasn't just confetti). The show began with the band walking on stage and pouring so many giant balloons onto the audience that all you could see around you was people's hands batting blobs of colour about the place. This frenzy continued throughout the entire first song, and was a better warm-up than any support act could have been (especially as the support act in this case was The Royal Dave Graney show, but also because most venues insist on "warming up" the crowd by having upwards of a half-hour break between the support and main acts). The batting of balloons ebbed a little, but didn't completely stop for the remainder of the show, by which stage most of the balloons had either popped or had come to rest somewhere where they couldn't be reached.

It was occasion central as the band did a belated rendition of White Christmas for us, and then sang a personalised happy birthday to a few of the people in the crowd (Kyle, Seamus, Alison, Phoebe and Sarah...). They also covered (of course) Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.

The Flaming Lips brought back the between song banter with a vengeance; I've never heard so much chit-chat between the rocking. Some were serious, discussing Elliot Smith, and keeping your eye out for people around you who may be suicidal. Others related to songs, like the mega-extended introduction to Thank you Jack White for the fiber-optic Jesus that you gave me. Others still were nonsensical (actually, so was the introduction about the Jack White song).

As well as the between-song banter, The Flaming Lips are well and truly keen on reprises, something that I thought was reserved for movie soundtracks. Most of their epics, once ended, began again in sing-a-long slowed-down fashion, squeezing the most possible value they could get out of their songs. All this procrastination leads to a long show that doesn't actually contain many songs, but I didn't see anyone complaining. The Lips capture their audience, and pull them along, and you'd have to be a freak not to enjoy the journey.

The band-members have a diary on their site, so you can check out what they thought too. Hooray for technology.

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