Photos by Jim Mimna
The Scene: Although copious amounts of rain had recently fallen from the sky, it could not put a damper on the pageantry and spectacle that is a Flaming Lips show at Red Rocks. The Weather did cause a bit of a logistical nightmare for the production crew as they scurried about the stage making sure that all the wires were straight. A Flaming Lips show in perfect weather is one thing, setting up the Lips’ usual theatrics on top of the Colorado Symphony, well…kudos to the crew. Speaking of wires, hanging from the top of the stage was a curtain of white strands that resembled jellyfish tentacles. The same tendrils spread out in front of Wayne Coyne’s cosmic crag of a pulpit. Was everything going to work? We were about to find out.
Opener: The Colorado Symphony. As the symphony took their seats, conductor Andre de Ridder addressed the crowd. The fluctuating weather had taken it’s toll on the wood and strings in the orchestra and Ridder wanted to let us know that they were going to warm up a bit. But you couldn’t tell that they were cold at all. Ridder introduced the first piece—the finale to Anton Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 “From The New World”—and pointed out that it was probably where John Williams got the idea for the Jaws theme. The opening did have that deep, ominous, half step change. The second piece the symphony performed was a slightly better known piece, Stravinsky’s “The Firebird.” The symphony sounded great—lush, full, and despite the adverse weather, in tune—and Ridder exuded a lot of energy. They definitely got things warmed up, but for some reason they left the stage, which seemed to cause a few hiccups as The Lips were getting ready for their set.
The Flaming Lips: It was probably no fault of the symphony’s. There seemed to be some preexisting technical difficulties that had to be taken care of before the band could take the stage. But that didn’t stop The Lips from taking the stage. They were ready to go, but it took some time to get the symphony back out and to get everything ready. So the band did what any band would do in that situation. They stood around, shot the shit, and drank beer. On one hand it was a bit anticlimactic, especially for The Flaming Lips. But on the other hand it was cool to see a band of that stature just being normal when things go slightly awry. It was really endearing to watch the crew help Wayne into his crazy light suit, which he announced by saying, “I’m gonna get into my thing. I’m gonna put this thing on an you’re gonna like it.” And when the elaborate suit started flashing he said, “Shit’s starting to work.” Indeed it was. It was very humanizing, which was fitting for the song they were about to play.
The Lips opened up with the first song from their landmark 1999 album The Soft Bulletin, which if I failed to mention before they were playing in its entirety. The first song is “Race for the Prize,” which contains the refrain, “They’re just human.” The song is about two scientists who are both searching for the same cure; you can read between the lines. The studio version of the song features what sounds like a mellotron mimicking the strings so it was amazing to hear it with the full orchestra. The light ropes and Wayne’s suit didn’t disappoint either. Despite the hiccups the show was off to a fantastic start.
Next came another favorite, “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton,” which carries over the scientific theme of “Race for the Prize; in fact, the whole album is something of a concept that studies cosmology, mathematics, philosophy and how the natural world relates to the human experience, especially love. “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton” possibly references the fact that a spoonful of a neutron star weighs…a lot, and the last refrain, “The sound they made was love” echoed nicely into “The Spark That Bled.” Next came the arachno-insect suite of “The Spiderbite Song” and “Buggin.” Before “Buggin,” Wayne addressed the crowd as he did and would do many times, asking everyone if they had thought they would “get fucked up and go to a Flaming Lips show” and indulging in that knowledge by urging everyone to make their best insect noise. Think ten thousand people buzzing. For “What Is Light”—which has a subtitle that is too long to relate here—and the instrumental “The Observer,” a huge rainbow was inflated in front of the stage which Wayne took a very long guitar “solo” underneath that did not go unheeded by the band along with some help from the choir. If things weren’t already heavy they were about to get heavier.
After “Waiting For a Superman,” Wayne asked the crowd if they knew what that song meant and quickly answered that it meant, “we love you.” This of course garnered an uproarious reaction from the crowd, which spurred Wayne into a good long ramble a la Billy Crudup on the roof in Almost Famous. “The Gash” featured a gong and Wayne remarked that it was the first time he smelled “the pot,” after which he hinted that maybe members of the orchestra were smoking before singing their infinite praises. To close out the album and the set, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” featured some poi twirling and some great jangly guitar on “Sleeping on the Roof.” The band left the stage, but we knew we were in for a great encore, or two.
The encore began with Wayne inviting everyone to his hotel room to get tattoos then a very crowd pleasing “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1” and the beautiful “Do You Realize??” But they weren’t done yet. The second encore got exciting with Wayne returning to his natural habitat of the bubble and singing David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” much to the joy of the crowd. And the amazing night closed out with “The W.A.N.D.” from 2006’s At War with the Mystics. All in all, while the spectacle can get a little overwhelming, it is a Flaming Lips show after all. It was hands down the best one I have seen.
If you missed the show, check out amazing photos and keep your eyes peeled for a DVD release in the not so distant future.
Energy: A
Musicianship: A
Sound: B
Stage Presence: A
Set/Light Show: A+
Overall: A
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