Posts tagged with flaming lips

05/15/2011

Flaming Lips @ The Fillmore Detroit 5.13.11

When one thinks of bands with live shows almost guaranteed to induce happiness and smiles, Oklahoma City’s Flaming Lips, led by the ever charismatic Wayne Coyne, are one of the first bands that come to mind. The over the top show has become somewhat of a spectacle, but underlying it all is a solid set of great tunes and a band who is just out to make people happy, if even for a few hours. I’d seen the band live once before at the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago and was among the fans who had a smile on my face from start to finish. But despite Pitchfork Fest being one of the more “intimate” festivals, I was still beyond excited to see a proper Flaming Lips show at an indoor venue and was thrilled to get the chance to shoot the show and see the madness up close and personal.

The stage was as colorful as I’d ever seen and the band was took charge in setting up their own gear and doing their own soundchecks, chatting the the fans up front the whole time. Coyne came out and made some announcements before the show even began, telling everyone that he would try to make it over the whole crowd in his trademark orb so there was no need to try to get to wherever he was. It’s this sort of not-taken-too-seriously approach that makes this band such a crowd favorite. I met two young ladies in the front row who were Flaming Lips super fans and who the band knew just from seeing them in the front row at so many shows. They were thrilled to be at their first show in over a year, and the band seemed happy and surprised to see them too. Another photographer commented to me that this was already one of the more unusual shows he’s been to before it even began. I told him that he had no idea yet.

The band took the stage in their usual fashion, emerging from behind their video screen while Coyne arose like a Phoenix into his bubble before rushing into the crowd. The stage dancers this time were in the theme of The Wizard of Oz with a plethora of Dorothy’s with a few lions, tin men and scarecrows rounding things out. Let me tell you, being in a photo pit for a Flaming Lips show is an entirely different experience than being in the middle of a festival crowd, and it’s one I’m probably not going to forget for a good long time.

Near the end of the show, Coyne took a moment to thank the enthusiastic crowd for making the night so special. He said that sometimes people think their shows are a little over the top, and that maybe they are. But that there were likely some fans in the crowd who were just having a tough time in life right now, and if the band was able to make them forget about that for a couple of hours and put a smile on their faces, even if just temporarily, then they’ve accomplished their goal.

This is one of those shows where it will do me no justice to try to describe the energy and enthusiasm in words, so I will just let a whole bunch of pictures do the talking. I couldn’t narrow down to less than 60 pictures, so in lieu of posting them all below, you can check out the rest on our flickr page. This definitely wins the award for my most colorful photo set.

Flaming Lips – Silver Trembling Hands

































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07/30/2009

mew – am i wry? no

live mew

after yesterdays post, did anyone figure out that today would be all about danish band mew? id heard one or two songs by mew but didnt really know much about them, except that the word mew always came in handy playing facebook scrabble when i didnt have a lot of vowels. im only just now working through their whole discography and its really impressive. like muse, they take hard rock to the next level with ear-pleasing melodies, unthinkable chord progressions and the most unusual of time signatures. especially evident on their latest single “introducing palace players” where it takes some time just to figure out the beat. they just played the pitchfork festival but i missed their performance to be in the midst of the flaming lips confetti/balloon extravaganza and kind of wish i hadnt now (especially since the wind blew most of that away from us anyway).

todays track is one of the first id ever heard by mew and has everything ive talked about above. from their 2003 album “frengers” (get it? friends and strangers?), “am i wry? no” starts out with definite elements of heavy metal, but not in a dark, screaming way. it starts out in 4/4, then theres a little musical interlude into 3/4 thats just so nice to listen to. then back to 4/4, and to close out the last minute thirty of the song, in true mew fashion, a whole new theme is introduced in a whole new key. thats what i love about this group. theres always something interesting to listen to and even within one song, the mood is always changing. and in most cases, all of the things mentioned above are even more apparent then in this track. in their 2005 album “and the glass handed kites”, they take it even a step further, with many of the songs flowing seamlessly into one another. the worst part about festivals is the post festival regret. shows you know you should have seen that you didnt.

mew – am i wry? no

Mew - Frengers - Am I Wry? No buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

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07/24/2009

m83 – sitting

m83 live at 2009 pitchfork festival

before we get to todays track by the stellar m83, its time to announce the winner of our sts9 giveaway! traffic was definitely way up yesterday. guess it goes to show that if you give it away for free, they will come. anyway, we got a pretty good amount of entries once i weeded out the duplicates. really people, if youre going to enter 4 times with 4 nondescript email addresses, either space them out so they are not sent all within 10 minutes, or at LEAST change the subject line or body of the email so they are not all exactly the same. you know who you are, but i still gave you one entry. i numbered each correct entry based on the order they were sent and then used a random number generator online to pick the winner. of course the answer was peaceblaster: the new orleans make it right remixes (but i also accepted peaceblaster as a correct answer). and the winner is……

jess cosentino!! surprisingly, so many people entered that somebody won that i actually didnt know. even though a lot of people i knew entered. so thats sweet.

congrats and hope you enjoy your new tunes and swag and thanks for checking out the site. hopefully we can do millions more giveaways in the future.

back to business. if you need a nice and rockin beat to carry you out of the work week and into the weekend, look no further, as todays track by french group m83 will do just that. i first heard “kim & jessie” months ago and wasnt quite sure what i thought of it. then i heard it again, and again, and it grew on me. then i heard a few other songs and got their “saturdays = youth” album and liked it a lot, but never investigated any of their back catalogue, nor did i know there was a back catalogue. i always considered them electronic, but never really considered them electronic dance, so when i was waiting to see them at pitchfork on sunday i didnt really quite know what to expect, so i was pleasantly surprised when they turned in what i considered to be the best performance of the weekend.

i think a few things contributed to this, besides my lack of expectation. it had been cloudy for most of the day but by the time their set began, there wasnt a cloud in the sky. as the sun was just beginning to set, it electrified the orange in the flaming lips backdrop and the blue of keyboard/vocalist morgan kibbys shirt (see above). then the show began and the songs took on a new life. by the time the group got mid-set and played “sitting”, todays song, the crowd had erupted into an all out dance party. the entire audience was completely into what the band was doing, and m83 was of the utmost sincerity when they showed their appreciation for the crowds continued support, and you could tell they were feeling the energy too. they were also among the loudest bands of the weekend and could be heard loud and clear even from the back of the park. its now 5 days after pitchfork fest, and this is the one show i cant stop thinking about. i wanted to do a week of french artists, but theyve been so top of mind all week that i couldnt hold out. cant WAIT to see these guys in a smaller venue.

m83 – sitting

M83 - M83 - Sitting buy this track on itunes
buy this track on amazon

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