If you’ve never been to a Flaming Lips show, you’ve been missing out (understatement). And on the 5th show of their spring tour, dubbed “There Should Be Unicorns Tour,” they proved that you can be weird as fuck, have the most absurd stage production and yet still have the music be the star and not get lost amongst Unicorns, massive inflatable-mushrooms, human sized hamster-balls, balloons and confetti.
As soon as I walked in the venue after checking out the sweet merch I was greeted by clouds of sweet smoke, some rather large magic-mushrooms on the floor of the venue and a rap/hip-hop outfit spitting party-tunes at a furious pace known as Clipping. The party was on and just judging by the looks of everyone’s faces around me, knew everyone was really happy and excited for the extravaganza to start.
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As soon as the Flaming Lips set foot on stage and played the first notes of “Race For The Prize,” the cavernous hall erupted, and in turn got rained on with happy face balloons and copious amounts of confetti. Always the consummate showman, Wayne Coyne dressed as a new-age hobo complete with furry bear slippers, eyed up the crowd and wound everybody up with a series of walk up’s to the front of the stage & back as his band was splayed around him in various wigs as they built a rich and funky jam.
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Then came the Unicorn and atop of it rode a giddy Coyne (in a different outfit, of course) as the crowd’s jaws dropped from the pure spectacle of it all. Even the casual fans at this point couldn’t pretend that they weren’t having a complete blast as the band played a catchy “There Should Be Unicorns.” A few songs later he would take a ride into the audience in his personal trademark ‘hamster-ball’ until he reached the back of the venue by the soundboard.
Who says Unicorns aren’t real?
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The most memorable part of the explosive evening (for this writer at least) was their incredible and breathtaking cut on the Bowie classic “Space Oddity.” Remarking after the song, Coyne quipped “I have never even seen Bowie, except for videos and such and thought for a long time that no one should dare cover him…but now think every band should take one of his songs and make it their own, we owe him that.” We couldn’t agree more.
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The Flaming Lips’ tour continues tomorrow at The Westbury Theater, NY and then will wind around the country with multiple dates, you don’t want to miss out!
Setlist: Race For the Prize, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1, There Should Be Unicorns, Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung, What Is The Light, The Observer, How??, Space Oddity, Feeling Yourself Disintegrate, The Castle, Are You A Hypnotist??, The W.A.N.D., A Spoonful Weighs A Ton – Encore: Do You Realize?
Article: Shayne Hanley
