The Flaming Lips, Glasgow review: 'melancholic, ecstatic, eccentric'
Undeterred by the daylight, The Flaming Lips brought their full laser show to Kelvingrove Bandstand, writes Fiona Shepherd
The Flaming Lips, Kelvingrove Bandstand, Glasgow ★★★★
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne once had a prophetic dream of a bijou leafy amphitheatre populated by happy Glaswegians. Or maybe he was just buttering up the fans at the opening concert of this year’s Summer Nights series. No matter - a Flaming Lips show always feels like a date with destiny anyway, such is the simple, sage philosophy at the centre of their concerts, summed up by chief cheerleader Coyne as “keep smiling”, and the parade of trippy playground props and silly costumes.
Undeterred by pesky daylight, the band brought their full laser show. This was baptism by confetti, with streamers and giant balloons coming at the audience within minutes of the band taking the stage. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was accompanied by giant dancing inflatable versions of said adversaries. Balloons were popped, the robots survived the encounter.
All this adult play was escapist embellishment to some beautiful songs, some melancholic, some ecstatic, most eccentric. A Spoonful Weighs a Ton was a childlike sci-fi wonderland, Chemical Brothers collaboration The Golden Path a celestial party presided over by “giant dancing star head man”. Yet the darkness in some of the lyrics was there for all to hear and one of the oddest/most touching moments of the show involved Coyne paying tribute to his recently deceased brother while wearing an alien costume.
Mirrorball fantasia Are You a Hypnotist?? was another reminder that this was not wholly the happy-clappy communal catharsis it might first appear but more a collective exorcism for Coyne and congregation. This remarkable frontman then doubled down on the supportive sentiments of Do You Realise?? by asking the audience to declare their love for their companions, paid tribute to “freak brother” Ozzy Osbourne with a cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs and zorbed across the crowd to the jubilant Race for the Prize. The moral of it all? “Never give up on your crazy hallucinogenic dreams.”
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