Flaming Lips rocked!

The Flaming Lips were better than KISS

You have no idea. Oh my god...you have NO idea.

Last weekend I went to see the Flaming Lips in Athens, GA, with some friends. I have only recently become a fan of the Flaming Lips, but after seeing them live I want to join the Lips Army.

The show was as crowded as could be. I mean that. Nobody else could fit in the 40 Watt. My buddy Lucas, his girlfriend Courtney and I were just in time to see the last couple songs of the opening band, Enon. They were pretty good, but I really didn't care. They did some neat stuff with the video screen that the Lips had set up, but whatever.

Then the Flaming Lips came out. We found out from some friends of Lucas that the Flaming Lips broadcast their shows live on a low-end FM station. Supposedly it had extra sounds and music on it, so if you had headphones at the show you would get more show than everyone else. They had a huge screen with a projection TV. Before they started, they showed a video of a guy to let everyone find the station on their headsets (those that had them). I had my Walkman with me. I couldn't tell much difference because it was so loud, I think I would have liked some better headphones.

Then they started with "Race For the Prize." It was an extra good, really rowdy version! Loud and fun! The lead singer, Wayne, had a big gong behind him on stage, whenever he hit it a strobe light would flash. He was also wearing a yellow raincoat, which I didn't understand at first.

The video screen showed various montages for the different songs. All of them were edited perfectly in time with the songs, because the drum track was recorded as well. The drummer was playing guitar and keyboards on stage, so the drums were recorded before the tour. Very cool. "Spoonful Weighs A Ton" opened with the Teletubbies' baby-faced sunrise, then when it kicked in they spliced scenes of the drummer banging away with scenes of the Teletubbies dancing...it was terrific. That was my favorite video screen montage by far.

When they did "The Spiderbite Song" it probably lasted 15 minutes because Wayne told the stories behind the verses. For "What is the Light" and "The Observer" they showed a couple clips of 2001, the part where the guy goes into the monolith. It was pretty cool.

At one point, I don't remember during which song, they had a guy come on stage in a silver radiation suit. He lit some kind of smoke/spark thing and just stood there through the song. I was glad I wasn't near him because it made A LOT of smoke, but it looked cool. It might have been during "She Don't Use Jelly" which I didn't think they would do, but it was really good anyway.

Wayne came to the mike (which had a tiny camera mounted on it with a really great fisheye distortion) with "blood" on his forehead for "The Spark That Bled." He ended up smearing it all over himself and adding more. He had thrown bags of confetti to the crowd and as the show went on it started sticking to the bloody spots. Everybody's fists were flying in the air for the "I said 'Yeah" parts. Really cool. I eat that kind of stuff up.

"Waitin' For Superman" was gorjus! It was awesome! Wayne threw a lot of fists in the air.

Wayne used a snake puppet to sing "Feeling Yourself Disintegrate." There is just something marvelous about seeing a snake head sing this really light and sorta flowery song. A bunch of people brought their own puppets to sing along. There was a Fozzie, an alligator, a sock and some others. The sock was right at the front and was REALLY into the singing. It was pretty funny. I wish I had known, I'd have brought a puppet. Maybe next time.

During "The Gash," [which I always thought felt like a Pink Floyd song-no real reason to tell you that, I'm just saying] everybody in the crowd was singing the "ahhh-ah-ahhh" parts. Pretty cool. The crowd was singing a lot. Everybody seemed to know every song. I like that.

The crowd also threw tons of confetti. Wayne just kept bringing out more bags of it and giving them to the crowd. And they threw it mercilessly at him during some of the songs, to the point where he was having a bit of trouble singing at times. It was funny. If these people had been doing that at another show I would have thought them jackasses, but he did it to himself. He kept giving them more. And balloons, he threw out a ton of balloons.

They had an extreme closeup of the drummer imitating the sprinkler noise on "Sleeping on the Roof." He was making a bunch of hissing and clicking noises. And every once in a while he would take a drag on his cigarette. It cracked me up. It was just funny to have him on stage playing keyboards AND on the screen doing that ridiculous noise.

I don't know what song they finished their set with. I couldn't hear it. Wayne had everyone start making noise before the song started and then told us to go nuts when the rocket showed up on the screen. We did. It was loud as hell. It was a short song, but I don't think it was from the Soft Bulletin.

They did "When You Smile" from "Clouds Taste Metallic" as an encore. It was a nice going away song.

They did all my favorite songs from the Soft Bulletin (damn near the whole album).

It was awesome. I loved that show. I would have bought a t-shirt or something when it was over, but there were so many people trying to get out that it didn't seem worth the effort. I did get a BAD-ASS cheeseburger from that guy that ALWAYS has his grill set-up outside the 40 Watt (I think his name is JB). He was cool as hell. The burger had "Comeback Sauce" on it and it was glorious. It was one of the best burgers I have ever had. Lucas's vegi-mite girlfriend gave him crap about taking a bite of it (while she smoked a cigarette). Hahahaha.

What a great show.

10-02-00