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Story by Tony Bonyata
Photos by Tony & Nan Bonyata
There's been an ever-growing number of music critics/pundits who
grumble that The Flaming Lips should either tone down or totally
reinvent their day-glo live circus of sky-bursting colored confetti,
mammoth balloons, costumed dancers, crowd-surfing man-sized plastic
bubble and other assorted freaky antics that have all been mainstays
in their live act for years.
I am not one of them.
Last Wednesday in Milwaukee, after witnessing the band's fountainhead,
Wayne Coyne, commandeer this hallucinogenic caravan through many of
these now familiar elements - ones that have made The Lips' shows the
single most engaging live experience (both visually and sonically) of
the last decade - it was just further evidence that this overblown
spectacle of chaotic mayhem and undeniable fun may just, in fact,
never get old.
Their show at the Riverside Theater was in support of their most
recent full-length album, Embryonic, and, perhaps more than any of the
records they've released over the last decade, the hazy, brooding,
psychedelic mood of the music from this record proved the perfect
backdrop for The Flaming Lips' out-of-this-world live experience. Amid
the cannons of confetti, giant dancing princess butterfly larvae,
eight-foot catfish clad in biker leather and huge stage-ensconcing
projections of gyrating nude women and other disorienting, shape-
shifting videos, Coyne, with his shoulder-length salt-and-pepper curls
and short, patchy beard, along with fellow Lips Michael Ivins, Steven
Drozd and Kliph Scurlock, focused heavily on their three most recent
efforts - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002), At War With The
Mystics (2006) and last year's Embryonic. In fact, the band only
performed two songs from their eight pre-Yoshimi albums through their
entire set, "Waitin' For A Superman," from The Soft Bulletin (1999)
and "She Don't Use Jelly" from Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
(1993). During their encore, however, they did manage to dip back much
further into another group's back catalogue for their wonderfully mind-
bending takes of "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse" (both from Pink Floyd's
1972 Dark Side Of The Moon, an album which The Flaming Lips also
recently recorded track-for-track and released in both digital format
and limited vinyl LP.)
While many great numbers from their past were missing from the
setlist, the focus on their more recent work (notably the trippy "Worm
Mountain," "Silver Trembling Hands," "See The Leaves" and "Powerless,"
all from Embryonic) only solidified how relevant The Flaming Lips
still are nearly a quarter-century after releasing their debut full-
length Hear It Is in 1986.
American author Erica Jong was once humorously quoted as saying "Every
country gets the circus it deserves. Spain gets bullfights. Italy gets
the Catholic Church. America gets Hollywood." And now the nation of
Fearless Freaks - an enduring term that Coyne originally gave to
himself and his brothers for the brutal backyard football games of
their youth, and has since grown to encompass not only The Flaming
Lips as a band, but their ever-expanding fanbase - has a circus that
they can proudly call their own.
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