Saw The Flaming Lips and Thievery Corporation at the Hollywood Bowl last night. Strangest night I’ve ever witnessed at that venue, by far.
First of all, it was packed (ie sold out) with hippies. Was like being at a watered-down Phish show. Then there was the heat and humidity, which was out of control. Every single person in the place was drenched all night.
Thievery Corp.’s Eric Hilton and Rob Garza – situated side-by-side in the middle of the stage, each behind decks, samplers & a synth, and surrounded by a full band including a bassist, drummer, percussionist, sitarist and ever-evolving array of vocalists – started mellow with summer grooves like “Lebanese Blonde”. Beat- and bass-heavy “Illumination” signaled a segue into a more upbeat vibe, and it went from there. Each song built upon the last, and everyone was into it, dancing and swinging their arms in the air. The place was bouncing bigtime. Then the night got weird…
Thievery invited The Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne onstage to sing the last song, and it was plain bad. He was horribly off-key (possibly on purpose, I’m still trying to figure this one out) and the song was slow and meandering and absolutely destroyed the energy and vibe that had been so meticulously constructed during the set. People kinda just stopped and looked at each other and waited it out. When done, Thievery unceremoniously departed the stage. All in all, a very strange way to end their gig.
By this time it was dark, and the place was alight with glowing green, red and yellow. The venue had distributed thousands upon thousands of glow-stick rainbow necklaces and pretty much every single person was either wearing one around their neck or on their head. During the set break, people came up with the PLUR idea of opening their necklaces, attaching them to that of the people’s next to them, and creating long snakes of glowing filament. Eventually, these snakes became chains, some extending hundreds of feet into other sections. Meanwhile, on the stage, they were setting up a bunch of cameras, including one on the end of a massive boom rig. Something was definitely up…
A message appeared onscreen: “Please join us…The Flaming Lips…on an…Epic Experience.” *cheers* The Flaming Lips took stage, along with a number of other people. First, there were a number of camera crews. Then, flanking Coyne, was a group of maybe 30 guys in Santa outfits on his left; to his right, 30 gorgeous girls, wearing alien antennae on their heads, and nothing but glittery paint on their bodies. Coyne got on the mic and explained: “Tonight we have over 15 cameras here - we’re filming a DVD. So we’ll need you to go apeshit all night long. Ok?” Then the music started…
…and Coyne is inside a plastic bubble. They roll him out onto the catwalk that encircles the front garden seats. The band is playing, and he does a lap of the catwalk and people are loving it. As the song’s ending, they lift him back onto stage, he exits the bubble and takes the mic.
Suddenly, maybe a hundred or so large white balloons are pushed into the audience from the stage - these continue to bounce up and down the entire Bowl for the rest of the evening. Meanwhile, Coyne asks everyone to chuck their glow-necklaces down and onto the stage: a few make it there, but mostly they’re flying every which way along with the balloons all evening long. Some people are even getting creative and tying the necklaces to the balloons, or opening the balloons, placing a necklace or two inside, closing the balloon again, and sending it back into the masses glowing from within. It’s certainly a festive atmosphere, with everyone jumping to hit balloons and catch necklaces. Basically, the strictly Gen X/Y crowd turned into a bunch of sandbox kids.
Meanwhile, onstage, things were getting more freaky. They had a wide-angle, fish-eye camera attached to Coyne’s mic stand, and he’d be singing while contorted images of the interiors of his mouth and nose were projected on the screen behind him…which was pretty nasty, but not as disturbing as when he busted out a bald-headed nun puppet and had her (him?) sing the next tune, what with the massively enlarged and distorted image of the puppet’s face and mouth displayed on (count ‘em) five huge projection screens. Next song he ditched the nun for a fake bird (white dove possibly), which he shook in the air for a few minutes (inexplicably).
For “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song”, the first single and easily most accessible tune on the new album, we were treated to a cool montage of mouths in close-up singing along to the song, overlayed by cartoon bubbles with the words in a number of different languages. That was fun and upbeat and people were into it. But then things got darker…
The new album, entitled “At War with the Mystics”, is unmistakably a protest piece against the state of the world, and specifically the Bush administration. “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” undeniably ties into this message, and I was relieved that they kept it light and arty with the previously described video montage. Afterall, we’re young and out for fun and ready to join The Lips for “an Epic Experience”. But then the screens came alive with clips of Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Powell, then Bush and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Powell, on and on again. Some people chuckled, but overall, I sensed its sobering effect. Here we are, 18,000 strong, wearing fluorescent necklaces and playing with balloons and suddenly we were jarred back to reality with pics of ever-controversial political figures. If only it stopped there…
For their finale (capping a rather short set), they launched into the most unlikely of covers: Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”. Immediately, all lightness and playfulness was removed from the scene as the screens broadcasted images of war-fallen corpses. Then, horrifyingly, Coyne proceeded to smother himself in what appeared to be blood. He poured it all over himself, and by the end of the song, he was a bloody mess. For myself, and others around me, any shreds of remaining giddiness were purged in that instant. I was aghast at the display. Surely Coyne and The Lips intended to make a political statement; but, for a group up until that point so entrenched in the tongue-in-cheek and flippant, this was a bold and harsh move. It was jarring and uncomfortable.
I think it’s totally cool if Neil Young or Bob Dylan or Morrissey or whomever want to be political – that’s what you come to expect. But for a group to cloak itself in youthful mischievousness, then blindside you with gruesome imagery, it just didn’t seem fair. It was as if they tricked us into letting our guards down, then crammed a hidden message down our throats. I felt violated. I hope I wasn’t alone.
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