The Flaming Lips at Troxy

The Flaming Lips
Stardeath And White Dwarfs
Cymbals Eat Guitars
Troxy, 10 November 2009

The morning after seeing The Flaming Lips at the Troxy I picked up my coat and a few handfuls of confetti floated to the floor. That stuff really does get everywhere. In fact after the show the floor of the Troxy (which I liked much more this time around) was completely obscured by the stuff, so much had fallen on us throughout the concert. It was like a carpet of party leftovers: piles of coloured confetti, burst balloons and streamers. But then each Flaming Lips show really is like a huge kids' party (but with way better music, oh and naked girl images on the screen). Even if you've been to their shows before, they are still the most unique concerts you'll ever go to and even the most miserable music fan can't fail to leave without a big grin on their face, it's that much fun.
Obviously the big balloons and other party fare help (at one point there were so many balloons in the audience it looked almost space age, like something from a sci-fi movie) but it most certainly wouldn't be possible without front man Wayne Coyne leading the whole thing. The positive energy he gives off and just the pure happiness radiating from him is utterly infectious. You can't help but talk about him with a little hippie-speak, because he really is all peace and love, man, albeit with a Christmas meets psychedelic alien vibe. Dressed in his grey suit, with untied bow tie, he looked smart but eccentric. Smiling the entire time, it wouldn't have shocked me at all if, like some 70s cartoon character, rainbow beams suddenly shot from his hands over the crowd (there were green lasers though, which is close enough, although not from his hands sadly).

The show began with the rest of the band emerging from between the legs of the psychedelic hippie girl on the screen at the back of the stage (due to the fact, I guess, that the new album is called Embryonic) and saw Wayne climb into his plastic bubble in order to pass over the heads of the crowd. He's been doing this for a while now but it's still pretty cool to see all the arms outstretched and passing him around. Once back on stage (which was now filled with a number of fans dressed as sheep!) the uplifting opening strains of Race For The Prize started and piles of confetti fell from the heavens along with masses of enormous yellow and orange balloons: the spectacle of it all was amazing.

The first new song was Silver Trembling Hands and with its Krautrock-style beats it sounded tremendous and saw Wayne singing it while perched on the shoulders of a man dressed as a gorilla (of course). In fact I wish there had been more songs from the new album because the few they did play were incredible: a coolly electronic Convinced Of The Hex, an eerie Evil and a heavy but groovy See The Leaves. In contrast, despite being a fantastic song, a stripped down Fight Test sounded a little weak although passionately performed by Wayne. The other slower songs in the set were thankfully more atmospheric, in particular In The Morning Of The Magicians and Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung, which I had never heard live before. And even though it was never one of my favourite albums by them, the crowd singing along to the title track of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (which niceguy Wayne told us was about "a friend looking out for another friend") was a beautiful moment. The main set ended with a grandiose version of The W.A.N.D. (an anti-war song apparently) and predictably but joyously the encore was a beautiful Do You Realize??, which saw us showered by even more confetti and looked pretty glorious. The whole concert was a huge wonderous thrill.

Just a small note on the support acts. Cymbals Eat Guitars were a typical American-style punk rock band, energetic but song-wise pretty unmemorable. Stardeath And White Dwarfs on the other hand were fantastic. Starting with a pretty faithful cover of Butthole Surfers' Sweet Loaf, they ran through an eclectic set that mixed everything from New Wave to classic rock and even some proggy sounding stuff. Best of all though was a warped cover of Madonna's Borderline which ended the set. Turns out the green jump-suited front man of the group, Dennis, is Wayne's nephew. Talent and eccentricity apparently run in the family. Which is a very good thing indeed.