The Flaming Lips

In the left-hand corner we’ve got Christian Santa Clauses, in the right, Scientologist Aliens. The Birmingham Academy may be a squalid, charm-free venue, but when The Flaming Lips’ weird musical vision manifests on stage, the grit and the grey slide into the background, giving way to life in all its colour and glory.

Back again to change the world through love, after five hundred or so albums The Flaming Lips are the epitome of Rock For Revolution in 2006, embracing life’s bigger issues whilst most bands are still singing about its trivialities.

Famed for their outlandishly euphoric live shows, as they open with the soaring ‘Race For The Prize’, the crowd is engulfed by balloons, streamers and cannonballed confetti – a treat usually reserved for the end of gigs.

It is clear how The Flaming Lips have become such a vital force in music. They start where most bands finish and take everything to the next level of heady imagination. From the moment they begin until their last note on stage, their presence is utterly thrilling.

Politically charged tracks taken from their latest LP ‘At War With The Mystics’ nestle amongst old favourites, and succeed in delivering an uncluttered message of disapproval towards Western policy. It might seem trite if it weren’t for the strike of such clarity that even the over-excited drunks sing a-long empowered on ‘The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song’ and can manage to understand what they were singing about. Music and Morals – it’s what The Flaming Lips do best.

“Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots” ignites the crowd who go wild, jumping and dancing and whilst they sing along to “Do You Realize?”, its lyrics seems more potent and honest than ever in these cold uncertain times.

Ending with a cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ is at once a hard rocking and home hitting tactic. Western society has a lot to answer for and although The Flaming Lips can’t speak for us all, they’re trying their hardest to tell it how it is. They may once have been thought of as the fearless freaks, but today in a world as skewed and lop-sided as ours - it seems they’re sanest voices around.

FUTURE GIGS