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What Is The Light? Flaming Lips at Irving Plaza, NYC
by Jordan Hoffman

published 4/24/00

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Jordan Hoffman is LeisureSuit.net's Queens-based Senior Editor.



MOST RECENT YAK ABOUT THIS ARTICLE:

Subj: Song performed by Flaming Lips on BBC2 show
Can anyone tell me the name of the song performed by the Flaming Lips on the BBC2 show Later with Jools Holland several years ago. The instrument, theremin, was used and Paul McCartney was also performing on that very same show. Thanks.

-- Anthony
Mar 11, 2005 at 8:03PM

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The Flaming Lips in front of David Bowman's multi-colored, blinking eye.
I stood there, I admit, a little doubtful. I’d traded in my driver’s license for a cheap AM/FM radio with headphones and was trying to dial in the special low-powered frequency. The opening band, the soporific Belle and Sebastian splinter group Looper, left and we were listening to some very agitating techno. To my right was the girl I bumped into who was friends with my friend Josh’s friend Peter’s roommate. No joke. She had seen the Flaming Lips a number of times before and was really jazzed about it. She was telling me that she goes to plenty of shows, but she only gets that middle-school excitement one used to get at shows when the Flaming Lips are in town.

She also explained that the headphones were because the Flaming Lips are now all about the Big Sound. There was no way they could recreate their music live as just a trio. As a result, a number of pre-recorded backing tracks make their way into the show. There’s not even a live drummer on stage. The headphones are to help the audience mix the show the way you want, I suppose.

No drummer? Tacky gimmicks? This is gonna’ blow, I thought. The opening act was quite distasteful, and the friends I was supposed to meet never showed. Part of me wanted to just slink to the back and get ripped on expensive beer. I only stayed up front because Josh’s friend Peter’s roommate’s friend was packed tightly into her blue jeans, and she laughed at one of my jokes.

Finally the band took the stage. With a nod, the place went dark. Stephen Hawking appeared on a large projection screen behind the group. He said something in that creepy “wheelchair-guy” voice. Finally, there was the downbeat to “Race For The Prize” the opening cut from The Soft Bulletin. Leading us into its ridiculous orchestral bombast was an image of Leonard Bernstein thrusting his baton downward full force, signaling that this dam-burst of live and pre-recorded Big Sound pop confection was now free to spill out into the audience. Lenny, my favorite fagilah landsmann was suddenly more noticeable than the band. And it wasn’t just any Lenny. It was the late 60s, pro-Zionist, white frilly shirt like they used to wear in the Knesset Lenny. He had been syncopated to react to the tremendously moving song about the inner children of scientists, intercut with images of New Mexico atomic experiments. As the chorus of “ahhs” would come at the end, we’d see a shot of Lenny at his most orgasmic, rolling his eyes back in love with that held note of Mahler. The perfect image. By being this ridiculous, this tongue-in-cheek, the men behind this show showed just how in love they are with their own music.

Also intercut were images of the drummer, somewhere back home, laying down the beat for the song. Seeing him projected made me instantly forget that he wasn’t there. He was shot on that great washed-out Three Kings-lookin’ film stock, and the camera person was doing that old Sam Raimi trick of bouncing (dropping?) the camera along with the beat. You wouldn’t just hear the bass drum in your gut, but the swish of the camera would hurt your eyes. It was remarkable.

That was just the start of what I soon realized would be the greatest assemblage of non-narrative film put to music I’d see all year. The next song was from the Lips’ “Zarieka” project, a heralded experiment in recording that involves four individual CDs meant to be played in conjunction with each other. Projected over it were images taken from THX-1138.

Another shot of the Lips live. Projection is of the eerie mic-cam. Taken from the band's site.
Then there were plane crashes, Royal Army marches, images from Time Bandits, open heart surgery, images dividing cells (the same form Yes’ “Yessongs” era?), men bleeding from the head (this was some of the original footage), and plenty of 2001 with the exposure monkeyed up. I mean, why not?

While this wonderful barrage of film often obscured the band, there were moments of pure showmanship. Lead dude, Wayne Coyne, took out a lot of aggression on a rather “Floyd at Pompeii” looking gong. He sings with a constant conspiratorial grin--you can see it in his eyes--that shows he really enjoys his job. I’ve not seen any performer as delighted with his fans as Wayne Coyne.

The Lips have a song called “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” that was never one of my favorites. I found it to be a little too easy: an ethereal and “wonderful” song about death. The melancholy emotions it hits, while earned, seem a little beneath a band that can record more complex tunes like “Waiting For a Superman” and “The Gash.” I’m guessing that somewhere along the way, Coyne realized he needed to deflate “Disintegrate” a notch. At it’s big, morbid crescendo (chorus: “feeling yourself disintegrate” slowly, over and over) Coyne whipped out from behind his back: a sock puppet!

I’m pretty sure it was a frog. There, singing his most bare and delicate lyrics about isolation and dying, was a goofy stuffed frog (with a big funny mouth.) Best part was this. There was a dude upfront who apparently knew this was coming. At the same moment in this emo-rich song, he whupped out his own sock puppet. When Coyne saw this, he nearly burst into tears. The two sock puppets turned and faced one another, singing only for themselves.

Other highlights included Coyne announcing that the Lips weren’t one of those snooty bands that try and bury their past hits. To make up for this, “She Don’t Use Jelly” was given a truckload of absurdist fanfare. Men in bunny costumes came into the audience, balloons fell from the sky, and even John Stewart (in a 1995 clip) appeared on the screen to intro the song. Then there was the completely irony-free rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” That’s how meta this band is. And there was Theremin. Repeat, there was Theremin.

In total, I have no idea how much of the music was actually performed. What did I really see? It wasn’t a concert, too much emphasis was placed on the recurring image of the bad guy from Time Bandits blowing up a puppy to a rock beat. Was this interactive performance art? Carnival? Science experiment? Post-nuclear sing along? Undoubtedly we were meant to ask these questions. It was just a great fucking time.

So good of a time that, after I returned my headphones, I wasn’t even annoyed when I discovered that the woman I’d been with the whole night had a boyfriend.


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Name: Anthony
Subject: Song performed by Flaming Lips on BBC2 show
-- Mar 11, 2005 at 8:03PM
Can anyone tell me the name of the song performed by the Flaming Lips on the BBC2 show Later with Jools Holland several years ago. The instrument, theremin, was used and Paul McCartney was also performing on that very same show. Thanks.

Name: jackass
Subject: lips r made for sucking
-- May 9, 2003 at 4:43AM
if the flamming lips had to get up on stage and play their instruments only, everyone would see how bad they really are

Name: MWB
Subject: the Best show in the world
-- Oct 24, 2002 at 1:09AM
Simply the best show I have seen in my entire life.

Name: t-dog
Subject: political opinions...
-- Dec 17, 2000 at 11:58PM
yeah, i've got political opinions. crazy ones like this: 5 supreme court justices (2 of whom should have recused themselves) should not do things like disenfranchise the ENTIRE country! the movie reference was spurred on by some dumbass saying i like ben affleck movies... my unchecked aggro took it from there!!!

PS: wanna see GOOD live music? Go see the Secret Chiefs 3 next time they're in town, beeyatch!

Name: cj
Subject: "fan-tastic"
-- Dec 16, 2000 at 3:09PM
Strange disagreement over the lips and their latest tour. Nice story either way. I've been a fan for so long they could have rehashed old glory (and to you nitwits demanding manic rock gutar solos and ear splitting drums that's exactly what'd be), and I would have been just fine with that. Instead I witnessed an artistic experiment of surreal sound, visual and puppetery. I thought it was inspirational. So why on earth would anyone compare it to a David Lynch Disney film? I bet you have political opinions as well.

Name: tinymontgomery
Subject: "fan-tastic"
-- Nov 24, 2000 at 10:45PM
um, my problem with the flaming lips show i saw was that they DID "recreate the album song by song and word for word". it's hard not to do so when you're playing to a FUCKING DAT TAPE OF THE BLOODY ALBUM!!!!! that's why i said that i would rather have stayed at home! oh, and by the way, "J", the only movie i've ever seen with ben affleck in it was chasing amy and IT FUCKING SUCKED!!! You probably don't even know who alejandro jodorowsky is, and you probably think the best film of 99 was american beauty!


[ps: the best film of 99 was The Straight Story, which had more soul in its first 1/2 hour than the flaming lips could muster in their entire recorded or performing output, or you will ever have in yr entire life!]


much love... peace in the hood...

Name: J. Van Volkenburgh
Subject: fantasic
-- Nov 20, 2000 at 5:19PM
The flaming lips are
genius. if people can't
appreciate that, then
don't go to the shows.it's
as easy as that. the lips
shows aren't neccessarily
meant for every person with
access to a ticketmaster.
some bands are like those
stupid summer blockbuster
movies. you need constant
anticipated stimulation to
stay interested. the lips
attract a following, who
i dare say, might even see
a film without ben affleck
so if you just want to hear
a band recreate the album
song by song, and word for
word...go see a flavor-of-
the-month band.

Name: tiny montgomery
Subject: great album-terrible show!
-- Nov 12, 2000 at 1:07AM
i happen to be of the mind that the soft bulletin was one the best (if not THE best) album of '99. however, seeing this show made me wish i hadn't gone. more enjoyable would've been staying at home and listening to the album. i should've known it was gonna suck when near the beginning they showed footage of that vietnamese guy getting shot in the head OVER AND OVER! this is so pathetically amateur that i nearly lost any respect i had for this band. plus, wayne, who sounds pretty shitty on the albums, absolutely SUCKED live. and he didn't even play any instruments! just a stupid gong and then faked his way thru an instrumental on the gtr... really sad. i saw them in amherst, ma and when the show was over, everyone just left, quietly. all the sock puppets, confetti and pilferred video footage in the world can't make up for a lifeless, uninspiring night of karaoke. i hope the band reads this and admits that this is another case of the emperor going au'natural!

PS: tell the bassist that it's OK to move once in a while... THIS IS ROCK 'N ROLL!!!!!!

Name: gabriel
Subject: The flaming lips
-- Nov 5, 2000 at 7:17PM
No chance of Flaming lips playing in Argentina?
Or at least south america...

Name: Richard
Subject: Where is T in the Park
-- Jul 11, 2000 at 11:59PM
It's a music festival in Scotland. Hope that clears things up.

Name: Jordan Hoffman Responds
Subject: Re: Flaming Lips@T in the Park
-- Jul 10, 2000 at 8:46PM
The bandwagon is happy to have you on board, Richard.

Where was this show?

Name: Richard
Subject: Flaming Lips@T in the Park
-- Jul 10, 2000 at 7:45PM
I went to see the Flaming Lips at the T in the Park festival as I had heard Waiting for a Superman and liked it and could vaguely remember She don't use Jelly. So I have to say it was one of the most amazing things I have seen and having such a variety of people singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow was lovely. Sorry about going on but this SHOW was excellent.
So yes I am about to jump on the bandwagon and buy some of their records.
Oh yes and to anyone who was clever enough to be into this band before me I hate you.(only kidding)

Name: Argot
Subject: Cool
-- Jul 2, 2000 at 11:08AM
I'm gonna check it out.

Name: Thadd
Subject: Flaming Lips
-- Jul 1, 2000 at 10:25PM
I was lucky enough to see this incredible show 7 times over the past year and a half.
The Flaming Lips are the hardest working guys in rock! And their music isn't too bad either.
Check out my archive of Flaming Lips photos: www.geocities.com/framelinesound/LipsArchive.html

Name: Trent B.
Subject: THE LIPS ROCK!
-- Apr 27, 2000 at 7:46PM
I cant believe what i was witness to on the 25 of this month.
The Best show ive ever seen/felt/experienced!
Looper was incredable as well, i highly recommend checking out either of them whenever they are in your area!


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