Music / Colston Hall
Review: The Flaming Lips, Colston Hall
Set the controls for the heart of the sun, The Flaming Lips have blast off… and if the Colston Hall has ever seen a visual spectacle to match this one, then I’d love to hear about it.
Tousle-haired, eye-patched captain of chaos, frontman Wayne Coyne, takes the stage with his starship troopers to a massive ovation and remarks, “People think we’re trying to escape America, hoping that Trump will be killed by the time we get back.” With that cheerful thought in mind, Race For The Prize gets underway. A galaxy of ticker tape, blinding strobes and huge balloons sweep along with synthesised orchestral aplomb filling every corner of the venue.
Boom?yes @theflaminglips! Absolutely explosive start to an amazing gig. Welcome to the (other) @bristolballoon festival. ??? pic.twitter.com/v5noafitMe
— Colston Hall (@Colston_Hall) August 13, 2017
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A huge inflatable pink robot towers over Coyne for Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1 before he departs the stage and, as the band builds up the shamanic groove of There Should Be Unicorns, he naturally reappears crossing the packed auditorium astride a mechanised inflatable unicorn while wearing angel wings. Of course!
This is truly psychedelic mayhem, so leave your preconceptions at the door – but it’s doubtful that most people here would be surprised at the Oklahoma outfit’s output and display. They have a huge cult following, built up over 30 years of trippy soundscapes.
Coyne ceremoniously bashes a big lit-up gong during Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung and then dons a tinfoil cape for the gloriously garagey The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power), before bouncing over the crowd inside a huge inflatable bubble for a near-perfect version of Bowie’s Space Oddity.
Photo by Elfyn Griffith
“This is the best job in the world,” says Coyne as giant letter balloons reading ‘Fuck Yeah Bristol,’ float off over the audience along with complementary paraphernalia and a rainbow coalition of lights.
The Castle continues the mood of wistful rhythms building up to ecstatic crescendos, dry ice and Coyne’s high-pitched, almost Neil-Youngish vocals. Two huge inflatable eyeballs and a set of lips appear for the guitar grunge of Oczy Mlody, the title track of their new album.
“We do pummel our fuckin’ audiences with so much stuff,” observes Coyne before the euphoric encore of Do You Realise? is performed under another big inflatable, this time a rainbow.
Take all the contraptions away and you’d still be left with the double drums, synths, guitars, bass and esoteric vocals (and green wigs?) and a lovely, sometimes beautifully hypnotic, sound. But the stage show elevates it to a new level that is sometimes deceptive in its flamboyancy.
C’est la vie and blissful vibes, children of the stars…
Main image c/o Colston Hall
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