THE FLAMING LIPS @ MONA FOMA | PYRAMIDISLAND.COM | FEATURE 01.2016

David Bowie died five days ago. This point was not lost on The Flaming Lips who opened their set with an aptly forlorn yarn about the Spirit of Tasmania losing all their equipment before launching into a couple of old ditties which were really only leading to their cover of Life on Mars. Coyne didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes for a long time when the song was done and held his fist in the air. I’m not gonna lie about it, I was wearing full Aladdin Sane makeup tonight so when they got to the chorus two clear streaks cut through the lightening bolt on my face and betrayed my state of grief for all the world to see.

The Flaming Lips are one band on earth whose live show should be a right of passage for each and every human on this planet. They always manage to maintain their other worldliness and a celebratory revelation that is sacred and compelling.  Though I’ve seen them twice in my life (this being the third) tonight I was still standing wilted in the spotlight after Coyne spoke his first monologue and played a couple of songs from their seminal album Hear it is. Have you ever seen The Flaming Lips? If you haven’t and after reading this, you decide to bother to pay a hundred dollars for one hour of live music I promise it will be a sound investment. If The Flaming Lips were a corporate monopoly, they'd be Google; full of rainbow slippery slides and sleeping pods in the workplace but also generating killer audience numbers with vast profits and shareholder returns.

Apart from that and apart from the fact that I genuinely got the impression that Coyne was exhausted and feeling stateless (which is not that unusual when you're in Tasmania even if you’ve lived here for half a decade) this gig held a raw and intimate accessibility for a silly old fan like me. I’ve never been able to stand on the grass field at a subversive art museum and watch The Flaming Lips live from the front row barrier. There weren’t even any dickheads flicking their sweaty hair at me or barging me with their shoulders so they could find their own vomit spot in the mosh pit. The whole experience was something of a naturalists revelation even for a relative Tasmanian local. Their stage truck had been on the ill fated Spirit of Tasmania ferry that was damaged in storms before being grounded and driven off the boat directly to Hobart from Devonport at the last minute. Pieces of costume were still arriving during the first song. Once they realised that their gear and crew had all actually made it to this godforsaken end of the earth, they seemed leavened like little loaves of sourdough standing puffy and proud. They played a couple of tracks off The Terror and Yoshimi and then getting their priorities straight, did a slow and building shanty version of  She don’t use Jelly which basically made all us old over 30’s pop backwards in our control top tights. Seriously the fucking song is 22 years old. Take that MOD TIGHTS! Anyways if you’re old, it was a beautiful thing. If you’re not, you were probably pushing in front of me for a selfie, for which I obliged so it’s ok kids, no hard feelings. 

At this point Coyne decided he needed to enrobe himself in his alfoil cape while mounted on the back of one of his roadies who was dressed as a hairy wolf. He wanted to tell us a story. The story will not be as exciting if I tell you about it now, suffice to say it's ok to believe in Santa, the Easter bunny and Jeebus even if you lose faith in them because one day when you are an adult who is having a break down you will realise that Easter bunnies and Jeebuses make life worth living 'cause they embody mystery and wonder.  We got on down to another couple of Yoshimi Battles songs, then Coyne cried “Hi everybody! STOP! You MUST do the ninja sounds in Yoshimi!” We stood corrected and they went back and started the whole song again with the crowd yelling out karate chop noises. We loved it don't worry, it was glorious and felt like we were getting free workshop time with the Coynester. The ladies standing behind me seemed to be working for a label or maybe they were just more in- the- know groupies than me. Puh. Anyway they were grasping my shoulder and saying “He’s getting the bubble out! Oh man he only does that when he’s either really happy or really sad!”.  

And so the industrial sized airbed vacuum blower came out and Coyne squished in to the transparent cling wrap ball until it inflated to resemble some kind of mega engorged Japanese toy. He made us work for it, oh yes he did. He stood there in it for a good 2 minutes doing a jam out of Vein of Stars until the security guards had taken their place between the stage and the barriers, ready to mitigate any insurance risks. Coyne does have a weird saviour drawcard. It’s not cultish but he exudes a certain brand of charisma even when standing inside an eight foot bubble with rubber duckies on his shoulders. I didn't know what to do when he actually jumped out on us in the bloody thing and I’ll admit I wanted to just take photos the entire time, I wanted the photo of his face above mine. (I got a video.) When he was actually rolling over us it was all a bit insane, Wayne Coyne bouncing off our fingertips singing and floating around the lawns of MONA in Tasmania. Seriously what the fuck? It was a privilege and I would have been gushing to get this close to these guys when they toured Yoshimi at The Palace in Melbourne years ago. Aside from my fan pants moment it was also a true triumph of live performance, pyrotechnics and sound engineering. Once we had safely crowd surfed him back to the stage he climbed out of his now deflated bubble. "Yeah so even though we're all having fun here today I'd like to say that I will be dedicating this next song to Mr Bowie". The song they played was Feeling yourself disintegrate and with a cathartic white confetti explosion, my face began its leaking and didn't stop for the entire duration of the song. By the end of it I basically felt like I was levitating above the field and I don't even take drugs. 

I guess I was also ecstatic 'cause finally a band from my fucking formative years had come to Tasmania and MONA to do something cool. This year when cannons shot the usual confetti it had the same euphoric, joyous effect on every single person in the audience it'd had ten years ago when I first saw them. They lit up a massive LCD screen that just read LOVE. It pulsed and shimmered as the last song rang out. Coyne had given us the heads up already that if we cheered loud LOVE enough they would do an encore. I was dashing back up the path to the stage from a quick bathroom break when they started blasting out Do you realise? Which if you’ve ever heard it live, makes you yelp and cry in your solar plexus with all the love for humanity. I did many finger twinkling hand gestures and turned around to look at the punters behind me. There were kids wearing LED lights on their dads shoulders, couples wasted and cuddling and people crying and dancing, all with white confetti snow in their hair. The shy and introverted people coyly smiling but trying to hold it back and failing cause they were so filled with love were my favourites. These are the kind of moments when live music makes it mark upon us all. Also never underestimate the power of the weird quiet introverts in this life, you never know what kind of transcendental characters they may one day become.

-Amanda Van elk.