THE FLAMING LIPS
VENUE BRIXTON ACADEMY, LONDON
DATE 07/09/2019
The rush to the senses verges on the overwhelming. Cannons on either side of the stage are blasting streams of glittering ticker tape into the Brixton Academy as dozens of huge, multi-coloured balloons are bouncing around the stalls. Rapt audience members alternate between knocking them around randomly and trying to send them into the balcony. The lights on the LED-adorned curtains draped behind and above the stage explode in a miasma of fluorescent patterns and colours to stunning effect. And at the centre of it all is the gleeful figure of singer Wayne Coyne, as he fires one set of party streamers after another into a throng that is, to a man and woman, grinning from ear to ear.
And this is just Race For The Prize, the opening number.
At first glance, it seems like a backward step for The Flaming Lips to revisit The Soft Bulletin again, not least after it was performed in full at Alexandra Palace in 2011, but here it is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Arguably the last profound psychedelic statement of the last century, the album’s existential and metaphysical themes of mortality and seizing life for all that it’s worth in the face of overwhelming odds are just as relevant now as they were in 1999.
Among the controlled chaos, it’s worth noting the difference in The Flaming Lips of then to the band of now. Twenty years ago found a trio creating a down-home presentation using fake blood, cameras on microphones that projected close-up images of Wayne Coyne’s face and a variety of glove puppets onto the modest screen behind the band.
Fast forward to now and Coyne, multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd and bassist Michael Ivins are augmented by two drummers, a guitarist and keyboard player, and a hi-tech lightshow that shows just how far they’ve come.
Which is just well. Because if a band is dealing with death, as The Flaming
Lip do on a creamily extended
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate, it sure helps to accentuate the good that can be done before the Reaper’s inevitable arrival. This positivity is highlighted on What Is The Light? and with its coda stretched like an elastic band, the opportunity arises for some deep introspection.
As with real life, absurdity is at the core of The Flaming Lips’ performance. How else to explain the sight of Coyne riding a model unicorn through the crowd during – what else? – There Should Be Unicorns, while the closing Do You Realize?? is an affirmation of the band’s oeuvre.
The chief benefit of exposure to The Flaming Lips is joyful mental re-calibration, which is exactly what’s required from the psychedelic experience. And tonight they deliver just that.
“AS WITH REAL LIFE, ABSURDITY IS AT THE CORE OF THE FLAMING LIPS’ PERFORMANCE.”