Music / Reviews
Review: The Flaming Lips, Bristol Beacon – ‘A celebratory occasion’
If you didn’t know what album this show was celebrating, the site of four giant pink robots slowly inflating on stage was one hell of a clue.
Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne was dwarfed by the mechanical monsters some 25-feet tall and which swayed and danced as his band played Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in full at the Bristol Beacon.
No support act was needed, with the band from Oklahoma City using the first half to play their 2002 quasi concept album in its entirety and after the interval treating a sold-out crowd to numbers from their back catalogue.
is needed now More than ever
“This is just an insane place you have built,” said Coyne. “The sound is so amazing.”
In a nod to their Bristol surroundings, the band came onto the stage after Glory Box by Portishead; with drummer Matt Duckworth wearing an Idles vest which you could make out once those giant robots were deflated or there was not confetti, streamers, lasers or beach balls in the way of him and the rest of the band.
An inflatable rainbow replaced the robots for Do You Realize?, after a “built-in moment” as described by Coyne when he got people in the crowd to declare their love for each other.
Just as well ahead of a song reminding us that someday everyone we know will die, which got an encore towards the end of the night.
Wayne Coyne was joined on stage by two eyeballs and lips for ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’
Despite the Flaming Lips’ regular brushes with death in their lyrics, this show was a celebratory occasion with the second half starting with dozens of colourful balls being thrown into the crowd during She Don’t Use Jelly.
“You can grab them and pop them, we’ve got more,” said Coyne, prompting the spheres to explode in showers of confetti.
For Flowers of Neptune 6, Coyne was dressed as a white flower, while for Waitin’ for a Superman his outfit was a Wonder Woman onesie.
There was fancy dress in the crowd too: a pair of luminous jellyfishes stage left and Amy at the front wearing a unicorn horn on the occasion of her 85th Flaming Lips concert.
Fuck yeah, Bristol!
Riding to Work in the Year 2025 was apt for this evening’s show despite having been released in 1997 while the only cover was True Love Will Find You in the End by Daniel Johnston.
Coyne was in top form throughout, occasionally launching into a trumpet solo or starting on his knees for the organ intro of Pompeii am Götterdämmerung, finishing that song in darkness – the only light at the end of a cable he was spinning around and around and around.
Race for the Prize was the final song of the night, with a pair of dancing aliens returning to the stage either side of Coyne. We really were floating in space.
Flaming Lips are big fans of independent magazines
All photos: Martin Booth
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