Western New York's stellar summer concert season continued Wednesday night with a wonderful and freaky blowout from The Flaming Lips at Art Park's outside amphitheater. Not even the blistering heat courtesy of THE HEAT DOME could keep the area's wildest music fans from turning up to see and hear what the Oklahoma City psychedelic rockers had up their sleeves three years after their last local appearance, and we didn't leave disappointed.
Things got started in controversial fashion with Pittsburgh electronic act Tobacco opening the show with an interesting set of hip hop inspired sound collages and sardonic visual projections that always seemed to be lampooning American commerce. The chilled out vibe was ideal for a crowd baking under the early evening sun... until the set abruptly ended with official looking types pulling the plug mid jam. Word on the street has it that some porn was included in Tobacco's visuals, but I didn't see it to be honest with you (I do recall a lot of Fat Boys footage), and even if that was the case, that's pretty cheesy considering three years ago a projection of a giant nude star goddess "gave birth" to the Flaming Lips to kick off their show. The "thin line between art and pornography" indeed.
The word going into the show was that frontman/ideas guy/guru Wayne Coyne had revamped the Lips' live set after a ten year run. Not only was I glad as it was getting a bit hackneyed, I was also very keen to see what was next from the longtime Oklahoma City multimedia artist. What that was turned out to be a shiny mic stand / lighting rig / podium connected by tubes to the lights surrounding the pop art pixilated video screen, with flashing lights pulsating to and from and around the entire stage. It was all very sci-fi, even more so when Wayne in a blue space alien suit reminiscent of his Christmas On Mars movie took his place on his cloud spaceship/altar/podium and led us in song. Gone was the space bubble, the giant balloons, and the rote pomp and circumstance that opened previous Flaming Lips show. The band took their places, the lights kicked in, the music started, and the journey began.
Kicking off with "Look... The Sun Is Rising" and the title track off of their current album, The Terror, the show was framed by the album's Brian Eno ambience and Krautrock influences, creating an intense and strangely beautiful musical experience that carried through to the show's end. Resident Lips musical genius Steven Drozd was on fire with the sonic ear candy that found it's way into every song, highlighting the pretty bits that have been a hallmark of their sound for 20 years. Whether it was the gorgeously fuzzed out Iommi-esque guitars of "The W.A.N.D." or the majestic splashes of sound that punctuated "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" and "Silver Trembling Hands," Drozd seemed to be wringing the sweet sounds from the music washing over us for the mesmerized audience's enjoyment.
Rooted to his mic stand light rig contraption and robbed of his usual habit of running around, Wayne took full advantage of his elevated perch upon the vaguely Doctor Who podium he designed, reaching out to the audience, exhorting us to get wild and enjoy the natural beauty surrounding us in conjunction with their show, and singing with tremendous clarity. The wonderful humanity of Lips classics like "Race For The Prize," "All We Have Is Now," and "Do You Realize?" was on full display in large part due to his excellent vocal work, which definitely seems to be getting better with age. Stripping the show of some of the gimmicks and the "inside of a snow globe" effect that was a large part of the Lips live experience for this new exhibition has forced him to up his game as a performer and showman, and he was terrific.
A cohesive musical experience from start to finish, the show built to an exceptional apex, starting with a spirited cover of Devo's "Gates Of Steel" that continued into a powerful exploration of their current single "Turning Violent" and the main set closing crowd pleaser, The Soft Bulletin's "Spoonful Weighs A Ton," pummeling the crowd with it's joyful ear candy, ear candy that carried over to the encore's always heartfelt "Do You Realize?" The Lips brought the show to an apocalyptic and visually intense close with "Always There In Our Hearts," The Terror's closing track. As the music throbbed, the lights flashed and the infrequently utilized confetti canons blasted their confetti into the night, the crowd got swept up in the experience one last super intense time, our senses tested and worked over before being sent home dazed and sort of confused.
It was a Flaming Lips show different from previous Lips shows yet still quintessentially a Lips show in every way, an energizing and focused art experience that showed that even in their 30th year the Lips are blazing ahead and finding new ways to express what they're all about, which is quite a bit actually. Between Tobacco's contentious and controversial abbreviated set and this new and improved Flaming Lips experience, the show Wednesday night was a spicy and memorable happening... and definitely one of the best shows of the year.
its gates of steel, not gates of hell
sorry, didn't mean to be picky, thats just the best Devo song in the world