Flaming Lips: behind the balloons

Up until about 4 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, I planned on attending the Flaming Lips concert as a member of the general public. But when I got a call from a friend in Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE) looking for a few more people to dance on stage alongside the band, I couldn't possibly say no. The Flaming Lips put on legendary live shows, and I had the feeling there might be costumes involved. I was instructed to go backstage via a particular entrance at 9:40 p.m., at which point lead singer Wayne Coyne directed me to the "Dancer Room," and I found myself integrated into what I'll call "The Flaming Lips concert-machine."

The whole production was regimented in neon orange. After signing a waiver and outfitting myself in full Yo Gabba Gabba regalia, Jake from the road crew led me and 19 other dancers backstage to wait for the start of the show.

"Where do you guys go next?" I asked on the way. Jake paused. "Umm," he said, "That depends on what city we're in right now."

The Flaming Lips set began with each member of the band appearing from on high and ascending down an orange ramp, but I only knew this after the fact, when I saw photos. From backstage, all I could see were roadies inflating Coyne's hamster ball. Once onstage, luckily, I was able to observe both the crowd and the band.

The Mid-Hudson Civic Center looked filled to capacity, a tribute to the amount of work ViCE put into organizing and promoting the event. The band opened with a banger, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," which asks, "With all your power, what would you do?" The Flaming Lips are a band with an unrelentingly positive message about the possibilities, and responsibilities, of individual action. The band's crew released a barrage of multi-colored balloons, which looked beautiful bouncing through the arena. "It always seems like too many balloons at the beginning there, but trust me, it's not," Coyne said when the song ended.

Other crowd pleasers included "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1" and the rather predictable encore, "Do You Realize??" None of the songs stood alone. Each was accompanied by crew members rolling a new thing onstage, from a gong (which Coyne hit each time with a lovable expression of childlike glee) to smoke machines and a pair of giant laser-shooting hands.

The mechanization of the concert robbed the performers of any opportunity to improvise. When I talked to Coyne after the performance, he sighed about how heavy his laser hands are, and how his guitarist has to keep that particular guitar solo short. Even though the show seemed interactive, the ability of the band to react to the audience was infringed by their responsibility to their concert-machine.

Wayne Coyne talked about trying to create a meaningful moment for every audience, but he outsourced most of his work to gadgets. In 1998, the group had the bizarre idea of broadcasting the show over radio waves and having the audience listen through headphones. I imagine that would have been exponentially stranger, but it demonstrates the goal of the band's live performances, which is to transcend the normal concert-going experience.

It's the reciprocity of this dynamic more than merely the output of the performers that turns a good show into a great show. The Flaming Lips played a technically flawless set. Yet something about the band-crowd interaction struck me as false. The band's five members, Coyne in particular, threw out plenty of vibes, but the energy output of the band itself was dwarfed by the efforts of the road crew. They let machines overpower their set, and then asked the audience to somehow respond with equal force. "Come On!" Coyne shouted several times, as if to coax the audience into giving back as much total voltage as the Flaming Lips concert-machine had released. But of course they couldn't—they were up against confetti cannons and a human hamster ball, and were armed only with laser pointers. This dynamic added awe to the spectacle, but it didn't create a relationship that really added meaning to the music. I'd like to see Wayne Coyne battle his own robots. If they ever turned against him, the man wouldn't have a chance.