sonic space

thoughts from space. music, art, performance, and anything that makes me glad i'm in the universe.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

the flaming lips @ the hammerstein ballroom 9.24.06

an epic experience.

it had everything i wanted. there was spectacle, but the kind of homemade art spectacle that makes the lips so incredible. wayne rolled over the crowd in the big plastic bubble, the aliens battled the santa clauses, the amps were all handpainted to match the cover of "at war with the mystics." there were balloons, confetti, bright lights, psychedelic images flowing on the screen at the back of the stage.

best moments: thousands of red lasers playing off of every surface. hearing "the W.A.N.D." live for the first time. singing along with wayne coyne and the nun puppet to "yoshimi."

actually, the lasers might have been the best part. we noticed a few laser pointers early in the show, when the opening act (the atrocious deerhoof) was onstage. it was annoying at first - lasers were being focused on the band members' faces and instruments. later, i realized it was part of the lips' plan. wayne's wife michelle, dressed in a wonder woman costume, circled through the crowd with a big cardboard box full of lasers, handing them out to everybody. she even made it up to the second mezzanine where we were sitting. just before the show started, wayne stepped out and cautioned the crowd not to use up the batteries on the lasers, because there was something planned for later on. during one of the lips' songs, the space went pitch black and wayne held up a big mirror, and told everyone to shoot their lasers at the mirror. it created an amazing halo effect, with a hazy cloud of red hanging over wayne's head.

but later, a much more amazing laser moment happened. a big white balloon was bouncing around the audience, with hundreds of lasers focused on it. the balloon glowed red. more people noticed and fixed their lasers on it too. soon, it was so bright and so hauntingly beautiful - a red orb floating gently up and down in the dark - that wayne stopped mid-sentence to call attention to it. he said "that is fucking cool man. i just want to watch it for a minute." and it was totally quiet for several minutes as everyone focused on the balloon. a symphony of lasers and eyes pointed at one spot.

epic.