Bestival's Best: The Flaming Lips

 This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go to the 'best' music festival England has to offer-- Bestival-- located off the coast of England at the Isle of Wight for three days of non-stop mud and music. Situated on a gigantic campsite of sorts, Bestival begins each year towards the end of the summer and features several headlining acts, as well as hundreds of other mostly British and up-and-coming DJs and musicians plucked from relative obscurity to play for thousands of screaming fans in several different "venues" and tents found about the site. There are areas devoted completely to dancing, some devoted completely to certain kinds of music (e.g. the Polka tent), a gigantic spider-like pyrotechnic wonder, food vendors serving everything from bangers and mash and meat pies to Moroccan barbecue, too many bars to speak of, huge fields of grass that turned completely into mud that was thick enough to lose a shoe in, thousands upon thousands of tents to house the various festival goers, and, of course, the seemingly innocuous, but wholly spirited main stage. It was here that the Flaming Lips played their set to close out Saturday night, and it was here where the bar was set for pure performance on stage.

Some would say that the simple act of people watching would be enough of a theatrical performance of sorts already, as there was a motley crew of people attending this festival-- a group whose true colors came out on Saturday, which was "Fancy Dress" day where people came in various costumes that represented their fantasies-- but the true performance was made by the Flaming Lips late Saturday night. After pushing my way to the front of the crowd before the show started, I was quickly a witness to the Flaming Lip's pure showmanship and imagination. The show started with a thumping bass beat leading way to a pulsating screen, where a neon woman danced rhythmically along. Before long, said neon woman laid on her back and gave "birth" to each of the band members as they came through a trap door on the screen to the stage. Lastly, the main singer of the band, Wayne Coyne, descended onto the stage in a gigantic plastic bubble. After rolling about the stage for a minute getting his bearings he promptly dove into the crowd, and it didn't take long for me to experience what a true bum-rush was. I was getting shoved from all angles by drunk British festival hooligans looking to reach out to the bubble, and within seconds a group of twenty or so collapsed to the side of me trying to reach him before realizing that there was absolutely no space with which to move in and that once you touch the bubble you must contribute actually holding it up because it is actually full of weight.

After narrowly avoiding disaster, the others that were now covered in mud and I saw him quickly break into song. What unfolded beyond that was a haze of lights and sound that was at times incredibly interactive, incredibly emotional, and even a little serious amongst all of the frivolity, but through it all it was wholly enjoyable. After starting out by playing up-beat songs like "The W.A.N.D." the crowd was whipped up into even more of a frenzy. Throwing balloons into the crowd that explode upon impact seems to have that affect on festival goers, though. Backed up by more light shows brought about by the huge screen behind him, Coyne was able to quickly get the rest of the crowd and I in the palm of his hand, and before long he sang cult classics like "She Don't Use Jelly" before slowing down for one of the more interesting points of their set. Amidst it all, after already talking to us once before starting the first song, Coyne again decided to have a quick chat with the festival goers, and decided to have us do a long call and response with him throughout the next song. Without any special effects to back him up-- besides our collective sound-- Coyne began to sing a song in which every action or animal was acted out by the crowd to their utmost joy. As Coyne sang lyrics like "He said, 'I can be a tiger,'" the rest of us (along with the drummer who was our response leader) roared back, and this went on for the rest of the song. Concerts that I have been to have had interactive moments like that somewhere nestled amongst their songs, but never something that was so drawn-out and integral to the actual song.

The rest of the set seemed to be even more of a blur of lights and sound, and Coyne sang hits like "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," accompanied by a video of a zoomed-in polyglot mouth that mouthed the words to the song and a word bubble that came out and said the word "yeah" in different languages. After seeing him bring out hordes of orange dancers, go on the shoulders of a man in a giant bear costume amidst a stage of smoke, put on gigantic animatronic hands that sent out green lasers that he then reflected off of disco balls up on stage so that the lights were reflected across the entire crowd, and other amazing stunts, the set finally ended after a worn-out Coyne introduced his band's biggest hit, "Do You Realize??" and began to talk about his theory of living life to it's fullest while we're still here. It was a surprisingly down-to-earth moment in what was a decidedly larger-than-life performance. After singing the song, the crowd too was simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated and truly left in awe of what was an all-encompassing performance. The set featured natural highs and lows, moments of drama and comedy, moments of extreme interaction with the crowd and moments of introspection on stage, and all the 'important' issues like the idea that there are more important things that money in life (heard in "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song") and the idea that life must be lived to its fullest (through "Do You Realize??") were captured on stage, all to the delight of the crowd and I. It truly was a performance, as Coyne worked the entire time to whip the crowd into a frenzy, and even when he was being serious he was still pulling at the emotions of the crowd. It truly was the greatest show I have ever scene in person. My only complaint would be that The Flaming Lips didn't come out for an encore, because the rest of the crowd and I didn't want the performance to end.

Will Berman
UCLA 2013