The Flaming Lips brought their bonkers stage show to MTelus (review, photos)

The Flaming Lips
MTelus
August 20, 2018
Photos by April Yablonovitch

Where to even begin with this show?

The Flaming Lips occupy an interesting space in the musical landscape, somewhere between an alt-rock standby and a psychedelic cult band, with a stage show nearly unrivaled outside of the stadium circuit. They have a few hits that have cracked the mainstream over their decades-long career (“She Don’t Use Jelly,” “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song,”) but most people turn out to see The Flaming Lips live because of the utter insanity of their live show, which has only grown more elaborate over the years.

Last night’s Montreal show started off with a bang, with confetti cannons and dozens of huge balloons reigning down on the crowd during “Race for the Prize.” The sheer exuberance of those opening minutes was only amplified throughout the rest of the band’s nearly two-hour set, which continually upped the ante in terms of showmanship. There was frontman Wayne Coyne, who between his constant motivational messages for the crowd danced beneath a giant inflatable pink robot during “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1,” donned a set of giant inflatable laser-hands during a dirgy version of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” rode a unicorn through the crowd for “There Should Be Unicorns,” and in what has become a centerpiece of Flaming Lips shows, entered an inflatable bubble and surfed over the crowd during the band’s cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

Those antics made for a thrilling live show, and coupled with Coyne’s relentlessly positive motivational speeches, lent the night a humanistic touch that could have easily been overlooked by the next outrageous set piece.

Touring in support of their recent Greatest Hits compilation, the set list featured all of the major hits a casual fan would hope to hear, along with a solid chunk from last year’s excellent Oczy Mlody LP.

Like watching Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory brought to life, Coyne and co. put on a delirious party of epic proportions, a complete bombardment of the senses that somehow managed to be life-affirming while remaining completely over-the-top and ridiculous (much like the real world).