I went to see the Flaming Lips’ new year’s eve concert, which was held at the the cox convention center in downtown Oklahoma City. This was the largest of a myriad of events downtown. You might recall that the Starlight Mints played up at ND fairly recently. So you could have seen them play downtown instead if you wanted, or see a number of other performances.
This being the third time I’ve attended a Lips event that year, (yeah, I know) I kind of knew what to expect. It was a bit condensed this time, however, since they wanted to end at 11:30 so we could see fireworks. Honestly though, I wish they had gone on until midnight; fireworks are common compared to the Lips’ aesthetic. My description is more specific on an earlier post, but there were some additions to this show. For one, a Santa Claus dancer proposed to a Space Alien dancer on stage. The Space Alien said yes, then it was back to business; Coyne directed them each back to their respective ends of the stage. There were also more balloons, so many more balloons in fact that they struggled to send them down from behind the stage. Coyne said there were about 5,000 of them, and while I think that’s a bit exaggerated, it certainly felt like there were that many sometimes. I’ll include some similarities that I don’t think I mentioned last time about the Chicago concert. One consistency was that everyone was given a little red laser pointer. At one point, all the lights were turned off, and the screen directed us to shoot Coyne. He held a big, round, reflective shield and moved it about. Coyne was covered in dancing red lights, such that it was as if Coyne had become a mass of red particles. Psychedelic seems to be the word that is most used to describe the Lips lately, and the lasers and effects certainly support it. The atmosphere grew more somber when Coyne pushed play on a bugle that was outfitted with a speaker which played taps. Coyne explained to us that there are so few musicians capable of playing the bugle, and because there are so many more soldiers dying in Iraq, the military had to develop this instrument to accommodate the many funerals. Soon to follow was a politically inspired rendition of “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song,” which viewers felt a bit more ambivalent about here in Oklahoma; some shouted approval, while others were less pleased. This was ironic because, as Coyne remarked, one reason that song has a political tone is because it was received politically by Oklahomans at the famous concert at the Oklahoma City Zoo they performed a couple years ago. This, I believe, reflects a difference in the body of audience members. There were still many great Flaming Lips fans, but there were proportionately less of them than at a regular concert. Regardless, I can’t deny that no matter how serious and sad Flaming Lip’s lyrics get, their musical style is so entrancing that I’m still happy when I hear it. It’s a certain something you experience yet cannot adequately describe.
We had our own countdown at about 11:30. beforehand, Coyne read and showed us the lyrics to “Auld Lang Syne,” which was appropriate for me since I didn’t know the words other than “should old acquaintance be forgot.” So overall, I still enjoyed myself immensely, even though I had seen them perform a similar, albeit longer show in Chicago. Others I knew at the show told me they also loved it, and that they too wished that the Flaming Lips had gone on into the real new year.
