What does unalloyed joy look like?
We live in a pretty dark and febrile world. Social media seems to have amplified the worst instincts in people in terms of the way they respond to one another and formulate opinion; while AI is cutting a swathe right through the heart of the creative community. This, combined with the always-on nature of the internet, the 24-hour news cycle, and endless stories of war, famine, poverty, and corporate greed, is making life increasingly overwhelming.
And then there’s The Flaming Lips. More so now than when they formed, they feel like a beacon of hope; an ethereal troop who roll into town like the players of old and simply spread a little joy and a little love. Perhaps it sounds naïve, but they genuinely are an antidote to the hectic pace of life and tonight, in Wolverhampton, they make all the chaos disappear for two-and-a-half glorious hours filled with life, love, and laughter.
Billed as An Evening With… there are no supports, which is as well because the stage is already strewn with inflatables, confetti-filled balloons, and lord knows what else, all designed to turn The Civic into a giant soft play area for adults. With the band playing two sets, packed with enduring hits and surprising deep cuts, it’s an opportunity to let your inner child roam free and, from the looks of absolute delight on the faces of everyone around us, it works.
Right from the start, it’s a night of magic and wonder. Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Parts 1 & 2 are dispatched early, with giant freaking robots taking over the stage and the electronica freak out of Part 2 lost amidst endless streams of robot-shaped confetti, all of which rains down over a cheering crowd who, arms aloft, seem to spend most of the night suffused with joy.
Elsewhere, the band are not nearly so direct. A personal highlight arrives in the form of Five Stop Mother Superior, the greatest song Beck never wrote, while Chemical Brothers collaboration The Golden Path is always a live highlight – especially when the band is aided by bouncing suns, who help to spread a little joy.
Between it all, Wayne tells us over and over that we must scream. “It’s not for us…” he laughs, reminding us that to let loose, to scream, to have fun is the point of the live experience – and surely he’s right, because a Flaming Lips’ show is a far cry from the po-faced, arms-crossed experience that seems increasingly the norm elsewhere.
And really, why is that?
Are we just so broken by everything going on that we’ve forgotten how to have fun?
The Flaming Lips haven’t and Wayne, even choked up with grief at the all-too-recent loss of his older brother (as we find out during the second set), sees love, light, and laughter as the only way to offset the heartache of existence – a theme that runs through the band’s work and is made explicit in the still-glorious Do You Realize?
Elsewhere, the band offer up mellifluous takes on tracks from across their storied catalogue. Minor indie hit She Don’t Like Jelly is still wonderfully idiosyncratic; The Spark That Bled misses Wayne soaking his forehead in blood but remains a moment of intense, slide-soaked beauty; The Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Song finds Wayne flanked by huge inflatable eyeballs in boxer shorts; while a surprisingly meaty cover of Sabbath’s War Pigs, played blisteringly straight, is the band’s one concession to the chaos enveloping the world outside this room.
The night concludes, as it must, with a stunning Race For The Prize, which sees the venue enveloped in confetti as a giant Fuck Yeah Wolverhampton inflatable floats across the room. It sends the audience, still smiling and singing, out into the warm July evening, with only the cleaning staff left to contemplate a future picking robot shaped confetti out of every single nook in the building.
For a few hours, The Flaming Lips made the entire world go away. We laughed, we screamed, we clapped, and we were bathed in the warm glow of a band who, for all their major label forays, have somehow carved out an entirely unique niche for themselves.
Now more than ever, we need bands like The Flaming Lips, and it was a privilege to spend an evening in their company.
