Hamer Hall, Melbourne
October 3, 2019
The Soft Bulletin saved The Flaming Lips.
Six years on from the "only in the '90s" success of She Don't Use Jelly, the band was at risk of following their heroes The Butthole Surfers into cult-worship-only oblivion. Their follow-ups to the Jelly-producing album Transmissions From The Satellite Heart (the Due To High Expectations... EP and the under-rated Clouds Taste Metallic) failed to do anything other than confirm them as a weird one-hit wonder band.
When they approached their long-time label Warner about doing their four-CDs-play-at-once experiment Zaireeka, Warner agreed, but with a condition - the US$200,000 advance had to produce both Zaireeka AND a serious/proper/not-weird album.
The serious/proper/not-weird album is The Soft Bulletin, which is generally regarded as their greatest work alongside its follow-up Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. Bulletin gave them hitherto-absent critical acclaim, and boosted their popularity in a more manageable and less fly-by-night way than Jelly. Here was, finally, the high regard, recognition and understanding The Flaming Lips had craved.
The success of The Soft Bulletin was on full display at Hamer Hall, right from the get-go. While their trademark stage antics were dialled down a little (Wayne Coyne didn't crowd-surf in a plastic bubble), Race For The Prize kicked off amid a flurry of confetti cannons and giant balloons.
From there, the seven-piece line-up (including two drummers) reproduced their 1999 album with pleasantly loose accuracy. The "heavy" portion of A Spoonful Weighs A Ton hit harder than ever, Buggin' was delivered in its original "minimal percussion" iteration as opposed to the Mokran Mix single version, and Waitin' For A Superman became a beautiful duet between Steve Drozd on piano and Coyne on vocals.
However if you went to this show (or the others on the tour) expecting to glean some new information or insight into the album, you'll be sadly disappointed. Coyne spent every spare second between songs working as a hype man; revving up the crowd and imploring us to cheer the band harder, especially through the lighter, more haunting tunes.
It began to grate, especially when you consider how many of these songs of a more ethereal nature exist on The Soft Bulletin. Few tunes in the Lips catalogue (or anyone's for that matter) can rival Waitin' For A Superman, What Is The Light? and Feeling Yourself Disintegrate for transcendental beauty. But surely I'm not the only one who'd like to bask in the magical weightlessness of these melodies without being told to woo-hoo louder.
It's a minor gripe really - it's the only thing to criticise in an otherwise splendid evening. Throw in the likes of Yoshimi and Do You Realize?? in the encore, and you realise how cosmically positive and pretty the Lips were during their glorious double shot of Bulletin and Yoshimi. Their ability to deliver on that line from Do You Realize?? - "do you realize that happiness makes you cry?" - is second to none. This particularly came to a head when they paid tribute to the late Daniel Johnston by playing True Love Will Find You In The End. It was beautiful, sad, poignant, uplifting and sincere.
And that's what The Flaming Lips are all about.
Great review Matt.
ReplyDeleteAccurate!
There was less (uneccessary) hype work by Wayne Coyne on the Friday night.
Where did all the balloons come from!?
Where were you seated?
I have no idea where the balloons came from... or where they went. Surely they weren't all popped.
DeleteIf you have a look at the second photo, that's where I was seated.