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Rating: Imagine one of those children's shows full of puppets and colors, I don't know, like the Teletubbies. Add a river of orange, green, yellow, and red confetti. Streamers. LSD. Strobe lights. Lasers. Aliens. Giant suns and dinosaurs. Alien dinosaurs and soap bubbles so big they can contain a person. Put it all in the hands of visionary Michel Gondry. There: this is a Flaming Lips concert.
But let's start from the beginning.
The Verdena are now a guarantee. I've seen them countless times, and honestly, after 3 pieces from the latest album, fired one after the other, I can't wait for them to get off the stage. Instead, a Don Calisto starts with insane volumes, and I dive into the frenzy like a reckless teenager. And I stay there in front, in the crowd, until they finish. Bravo... As always.
While the instruments are being prepared on stage for the Lips, I take a leap to see the t-shirts and who do I find? Yes, him. Exactly him! The legendary Bartleboom, risen from his own ashes stronger and more handsome than ever.
We chat a bit about the legendary DeBaser, about the coolest users of the moment and the most fan-cool ones, crack a few jokes, a few laughs, then he confesses to me that he's the Dredd of Gallarate and lets me know that the law is back in town. A great big-hearted Bartle, really a nice person (we actually met that very evening).
The Flaming Lips take the stage, I bid farewell to Bartle (who no longer has the physique to be in the front rows, editor's note), and find myself a spot on the left side of the stage, wondering what that all-colored cannon I have practically aimed at my face might be.
They kick off with that absurd masterpiece Race For The Prize, and at the first chorus, I discover the purpose of the aforementioned cannon. A blast of smoke and confetti hits me full-on. Multi-colored balloons are inflated and launched onto the crowd. Wayne Coyne has a guitar with nails on the headstock to pop the balloons mid-air. On stage, young dancers dressed as sailor girls dance. Needless to say, I'd go for all of them. Two giant puppets, a sun and a pseudo-dinosaur, move in time within a crowded orgy of people and colors.
With The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, the frenzy increases, ultrapsychedelic looped videos are projected in the background, and I somewhat regret not having smoked some herb, but, in the end, the Lips are a natural hallucinogenic drug. They end the song with a trail of noise, and Wayne immerses himself in a transparent air-filled sphere. He starts surfing over our heads. Unfortunately, the Coyne-Ball doesn't reach my side, but oh well.
There are moments of intimacy, enhanced by the camera mounted on the frontman's microphone, projecting his haggard and sweaty face in the background, alternating with moments of pure psychedelic trip, always emphasized by repetitive and lysergic videos.
At a certain point, Wayne brandishes two colossal hands that shoot green, red, and blue lasers. It feels like being in a Gondry movie. Everything is remarkably surreal. I look around... everyone is smiling. The Flaming Lips draw out the child within you. It seems silly, but with some special effects and excellent music, you get lost. You become a child again. You feel good, in a world they have just invented especially for you.
The closure is reserved for Do You Realize. Everyone sings in unison. Do You Realize is the track that made me discover this fantastic band. I'm tremendously emotional and shout: "Duuuu yuuuuu rialaisssss det yu ev de most biuuuuuutiful feeeeisssss". Confetti and streamers hit us again. It's the most over-the-top moment of the concert... No one understands anything anymore. It's the fair of madness.
Taking a photo with Wayne is impossible. Hooking up with one of the dancers even more. So, I buy a t-shirt and we leave.
Flashback. In a moment of pause, someone shouts: "I'm here from North Carolina" and Wayne Coyne replies: "You are in the fuckin' right place, man".
Yes, the right place...
WHAT A SHOW!
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