I didn’t realise how much I’d missed The Flaming Lips. At the Palais Theatre they rewarded the loyal who have stuck by them and reminded us why they were so special in the first place. It started low key enough, with Clouds Taste Metallic’s quiet opening in The Abandoned Hospital Ship. When Steve Drozd shifted from keys to his original home on the drums and cracked out a fill at the exact moment the lights, confetti and balloons exploded, it was obvious that this time they were going to give us something different. It worked a treat and people went bananas.
Here were a muscular seven-piece rock band with several guitarists who weren’t afraid to play classics and stretch out. Samples were triggered occasionally and tastefully done, simply adding to the all-consuming aural mind-fuck. Even She Don’t Use Jelly, a song none of us ever need to hear again, rocked like a monster.
At War With the Mystics B-side The Gold In the Mountain of Our Madness was the first opportunity to take a breather. The only real reminder of Wayne Coyne’s midlife crisis came with a smoko-friendly Miley Cyrus cover. Never played before in Australia, Feeling Yourself Disintegrate was as heartbreakingly brilliant as that one time you listened to it on repeat while coming down off acid, and featured the most stunning extended guitar break from Drozd, the true soul of the Lips.
When these songs are done well – and let’s not forget they are truly great songs – there’s less focus on the shit-to-dazzle-the-crowd-with (confetti, balloons, hordes in animal suits). If pushed to say anything negative, the quasi-spiritual love speeches felt tacked on, especially after all Coyne has put us through, and the balloons are just too fucking distracting. But without the balloons bouncing about throughout the show, you’d miss this strange metaphor for life, or love, or a rock show or something. It always starts so vibrant and joyous and beautiful and overwhelming but slowly over time, dies, until there is nothing left but the small, gentle pulse of a solitary bouncing balloon. And then….pop, it’s over.
BY NICK HILTON
Photo by Ian Laidlaw
Loved: The W.A.N.D.’s intimate visuals
Hated: Bad Days was cut from the set.
Drank: Foyer Boags. No take-ins allowed.
