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Rating: START
I'm here rewatching some clips of the FL concert on my video camera. It took a while to start (OK Go were not bad, really funny...) but now here is Wayne Coyne, who, just arrived on stage amidst a cheering crowd, says a few words and then launches Race For The Prize and an explosion of confetti into the sky of Villa Ada...A triumphant display, this time of dazzling colors, on the screen with a text forming piece by piece: "HELLO EVERYBODY, AS WE KNOW, OUR LIFE IS" (here the video camera freezes; my wife, who was filming while I was in the heart of the concert, did her best). There weren't as many confetti, balloons, and streamers three years ago in Rimini. Look here, sure that this time I managed to recognize Race For the Prize, despite the noise and Coyne's not very tenor voice (being kind), and that's no small feat. You can hear my daughter shouting in wonder....
"Mom, it's better than Carnival!! Mom, look, there's Santa Claus, actually many!! Mom, but Santa Claus is supposed to be only one???? Look at the giant balloons, mom, I want to touch one!! I want to touch one!!! I TOUCHED IT!!!!!!"
The setting changes for Free Radicals. Now on the screen, there's one of those kitsch/absurd Japanese games. Lots of little girls in a circle with only their heads poking out of a platform and a steak (yes, really) on their foreheads. At the center of the platform, an iguana or something similar. The undecided iguana doesn't know where to go, and the girls scream every time they are targeted by the reptile's hungry gaze. Every time the refrain starts "you think you're radical, but you are not so radical, you are just fanatical" the iguana frantically moves on the platform as if having a panic attack... How can she continue filming with her shouting in her ears...
"MOM, can I sing?
Lu finc ARRADAGOL, baggià FANADAGOLL...
Mom, can we go to dad?? I WANT TO GO TO DAD!!! I WANT TO GO TO DAAAAAAD!!!. Mom, what are you thinking??"
"Damn, how do I tell her it's a great show and that it was worth it??? If I do, I can kiss goodbye to listening to anything else for the next 30 years... But he is really wasted, look at his pupils!!"
We move forward with the tape, passing the glowing yellow bull that rages on the screen, also driven crazy (it too??!) by the syncopated rhythm of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robot Part #1 and arriving at Vein of Stars. Vein Of Stars is already by itself an extremely suggestive song, but this nebula (it looks like the one from Islands by KC) with stars fleeing out of the screen is truly a fitting complement to the music.
STOP.
The video camera recording ends here at the best part (just when A Spoonful Weights a Ton was starting), Too bad, one of my favorite songs with all those Teletubbies. However, I have here (even though the image and sound quality are not excellent) great performances of The Wand, Do You Realize, Yoshimi part #1 (as already said, amazing in every sense) and #2 (the usual indispensable puppet-glove resembling a nun). All in all, it was more or less what I expected, even though they didn't include a good part of the tracks from At War (see Pompeii, It Overtakes Me) that could have benefited from the extraordinary scenography-music combination on which the whole concert was based (for critics, this is the real limitation of FL live, not for me, not for my daughter either...). Wayne Coyne's voice, as usual, requires understanding, but maybe that's where all the beauty lies.
PS#1
NIckGhostDrake, the walk inside the inflatable ball didn't happen here in Rome. Another small disappointment...
PS#2
Last Saturday I went to the Baustelle concert (alone, no balloons and confetti to entertain my daughter this time). They had a sea of stage assistants (for setting up, tuning instruments, etc.). They only arrived at the end, like many "young divas growing up". To think the American pranksters set up the stage practically by themselves, as usual. And this is also part of their uniqueness.
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