I had even seen the Flaming Lips play on a couple of occasions before - once at Reading at around the turn of the century, and once at Glastonbury in 2003. Even that didn't properly prepare me for how good this was.
The support band were Midlake, an all-American band who had made the day trip to London from France, just to play support. They sounded very much like Mercury Rev, and took advantage of the video screen to deliver some great visuals during their set. They certainly didn't rock, with keyboards and soft vocals preferred to heavy guitar usage, but they were very good.
The Flaming Lips set started during the interval, when the band came on (as they always do), to tech their own instruments, so that the sound is exactly as they want it to be. Then, after a brief gap, a town crier appeared on stage, telling us how the band had been in trouble with the health and safety police on their tour so far. A dazzling video show later, and Wayne Coyne appeared at the side of the stage, in his giant bubble, and proceeded to go for a walk/stumble across the heads of the crowd.
Racing straight into Race For The Prize, it really hit me how good the sound was. The visuals just got better, with streamers, smoke, tickertape, and giant green balloons released into the room. Looking around, it was an almost overwhelming experience, with so much madness going on all around. There were a dozen dancers dressed as Santa Claus on one side of the stage, a dozen dressed as elves on the other side, and people dressed as superheroes running around all over the place - truly mad.
The highlights just came too thick, and too fast, for any words to do them justice. The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song was "dedicated" to George Bush, and sounded incredible. She Don't use Jelly featured a fantastic reprise, and again sounded amazing. For the encore, they played a blinding version of Bohemian Rhapsody, with both sound and visual completely overwhelming. Then, after almost 2 hours, they fired a ton of tickertape into the audience, and walked off stage.It is impossible to do a show like this justice, there are not enough superlatives I can use to describe it. U2's Zoo TV tour took live shows to another level, back in 1993, combining sound and visual to create an amazing show. The Flaming Lips take this several steps further, quite unlike anything you could possibly experience elsewhere. Amazing, incredible, fantastic, they deserve all of these words and more. If you haven't seen this band live, you have no idea of just how unbelievable a live gig can be. Beg, steal or borrow a ticket next time they are in town.
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