I first witnessed Oklahoma City`s finest in November 1999 at the smaller sister venue, The Wulfren Hall just around the back of this venue. NME (New Musical Express) had covered them, a weekly printed magazine and at the time my musical social media choice and so I and around another four hundred souls all headed to observe this iconic, influential, and unpredictable force in American alternative rock music. I remember coming away thinking what the hell have I just witnessed. I took my girlfriend, who is now my wife to see them on our first date at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham in July 2002, just before the release of `Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots` and saw her watch what was a show that I could tell she viewed with shock and awe.
We`ve seen them a few times since but must admit that it`s over a decade since we last caught them, so when this show was announced I quickly purchased a pair of tickets for myself and my wife.
The lights dim and the band walk on stage and complete a version of `It Overtakes Me` before all hell breaks loose with `Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pts.1 & 2` from said concept album in which a brave Japanese karate expert fights giant pink robots widely symbolising cancer, and Yoshimi represents the fierce will to survive. The song and album is about the fragile balance between joy, pain, and mortality and this uplifting sentiment always permeates the nature of a Lips happening.
The dreamy `Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung` or Pompeii at the twilight of the gods and `The Spark That Bled` are shared with accompanying visuals and inflatables. The latter being a dreamy number about emotional trauma and vulnerability.
The heartbreaking `True Love will Find You In The End` is a cover of Lo-fi artist Daniel Jonston`s opus and adds further emotion to a show that`s already full of intensity. Singer Wayne Coyne explains that `Watching the Lightbugs Glow` is a number that was inspired by conversations with singer Kacey Musgraves about her personal experiences writing music after using LSD, another number which lights up this venue. The guys offer up `The Golden Path` a song from The Chemical Brothers which the band collaborated on and this nigh on concludes the first hour of the bands set for this evening.
As `Cum On feel the Noize` from Slade is pumped through the pa, our navigators return and share the contemplative and trippy `Vein of Stars` a song that touches on human insignificance in this vast universe.
I love the line “ And if there ain’t no heaven maybe there ain’t no hell?.” I always find that `All We Have Is Now` is a number that encourages us to live in the moment while the wonderful `Do You Realize?` with its reminder of mortality salience has the uncomfortable but true sentiment of “Do you realize we’re floating in space? Do you realize that happiness makes you cry? Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?” The track has become Oklahoma’s official State song, believe it or not.
My favourite TFL number `She Don`t Use Jelly` is given a workout and I’d encourage you to catch the slightly surreal video that was made for this track. The next passage offers some really meditative tunes with `A Spoonful Weighs A Ton` an emotional song about mortality, deep grief, and how love and human connection can overcome overwhelming sadness and `Flowers of Neptune 6` a phantastic number about aging and loss.
Amongst its lyrics `Five Stop Mother Superior Rain` has lines about being born on the day JFK was shot and when John Lennon`s brain was shot, a strangely bizarre take on isolation and helplessness.
The highlight emotionally of the evening for me was an unreleased song `Every Drop of Rain` where the singer understandably broke down as he introduced the song and spoke about his oldest brother Tommy who had passed away a couple of days before. Tommy`s picture was used for the cover of the `American Head` album. It was hard to listen to without a tear in your eye.
The gentle and tender `It`s Summertime` follows before the venue explodes when the group head into `The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)` a song about political corruption. The penultimate number was a cover of Black Sabbath`s `War Pigs` which I have to say was heavy and respectful. The show concluded with possibly the band`s best known track `Race For The Prize` a really uplifting creation written after Wayne`s Dad had passed and offers up a view that the ultimate prize is not fame or money, but a medical cure to save humanity from disease.
I have to say this unique and special two hour plus show left me and i`m sure others with some really bubbling emotions from joy and euphoria to heartbreak, rumination, and reflection. A Flaming Lips show is more of an event, a happening, its fairly theatrical with inflatables, dressing up, back screens and subtly encourages you to participate. I find that The Flaming Lips shows are almost unparallelled compared to other bands let alone psychedelic experimental rock bands where partaking isn`t necessarily obligatory but what you put it you certainly get out and more.
