A trimmed down Flaming Lips keeps the fireburning
ByJeff TerichStaff Writer
For a trio, the Flaming Lips sure know how to command an audience.
Their Saturday evening performance at the Glass House in Pomonaproved that the band only gets more exciting and innovative withtime, despite guitarist Ronald Jones’s decision to leave the band.
When asked about its broad, cinematic sound, bassist Mike Ivinssaid, “With these tracks that have entire orchestras in them, if youhave the time to play everything, you can come up with more ideas.It’s not even that we’re trying to make it sound like a wholeorchestra — just more textures.
“We never wanted to be limited and say that we would never dodigitized sound and only record things acoustically.”
The performance began with a video of Conan O’Brien introducingthe band, which segued into its opener, “Race For The Prize.” Betweenverses, singer Wayne Coyne smashed a gong with his mallet, while oldblack-and-white film clips flashed across a large screen at the backof the stage.
Throughout the show, various images appeared behind the band on ascreen, ranging from a snippet from “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”to a clip from the Teletubbies during “A Spoonful Weighs A Ton,” toits own music video of “Waiting for A Superman.”
“Some of the stuff is actually taken from our videos and some ofit is just cool images,” Ivins said. “Sometimes the images are socompelling that you forget that there’s a band playing.
“We try to make it a part of the show, not just nice visuals.”
The theatrics didn’t stop at the video screen. During aperformance of the song “The Spark That Bled,” Coyne actually pouredfake blood onto his forehead. Then, while performing an older song,”Lightning Struck the Postman,” Coyne strapped a strobe light to hischest and lit a sparkler inside of a megaphone while singing throughit.
Perhaps one of the most amusing stage antics, although subtle, wasthe use of a hand puppet during “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate.”
There is a method to their madness, though.
“We do all these songs about death and suicide and depression,”Ivins said. “It would just be a downer to see us without all thisother fun stuff up there.”
Later on in the show, Coyne gave a monologue about the troublewith having a hit song, explaining that it’s OK to like certainsongs, despite the fact that certain other people who ordinarily havebad taste also like those songs. His soliloquy was, of course, anintroduction to the band’s 1994 single, “She Don’t Use Jelly.” Butinstead of treating the song like an embarrassing old photo, the bandcelebrated its absurdity by distributing bags of confetti andballoons to be thrown around during the performance.
Although the set seemed, at times, more like performance art thana concert, the music was the reason that a few hundred Flaming Lipsfans showed up, and what they heard was breathtaking. Performingmostly songs from its latest album, The Soft Bulletin, the FlamingLips played a consistently innovative and sonically pleasing set,proving they are a band unlike any other.
Speaking of the band’s music, Ivins said, “We are influenced byjust about everything we listen to, but we just try to come up withnew ideas now, instead of making a record that’s reflective of ourrecord collections.”
“In March, we’ll actually be going into the studio and working onour next record. There are some songs that didn’t make it onto TheSoft Bulletin and we may use that as a jumping off point.”
Although the members didn’t have any new songs to play at theshow, they did encore with a holiday classic — Bing Crosby’s “WhiteChristmas.” Appropriately enough, white confetti floated around theroom, imitating a flurry of snow.
Original, fun and entertaining, the Flaming Lips know how to keeptheir fans amused.
