Flaming Lips at Mountain Park, 7/24/10

The Flaming Lips are still on tour, and, like all masters of their craft, they're constantly getting better at what they do: creating community through music. That's not necessarily the thesis that comes to mind during their opener, which still included the band's enterance through their own video screen, as they each emerged on stage from a psychedelic vagina. But as the confetti cannons showered all of us in colored tissue paper; as we kept aloft dozens of massive balloons (and larger balloons filled with small balloons, even), bouncing them off each other's heads; as we all listened and watched, between songs as Wayne Coyne, tireless frontman, sweating profusely, preached an unabashed positivism: we had our collective ears wrapped around some new unity that hadn't existed before.

Part of the fun of all this non-hokey community building was that none of us were really sure where we were. Mountain Park has been open as a concert venue for only a few months, just long enough for the Iron Horse Entertainment Group (also operators of the Calvin Theater, the Iron Horse Brewery, and a few other venues in the western Massachusetts corridor) to work out all the kinks: the pathways are new gravel, the parking lot lighting and roadways are new, the portapotties were clean and well-placed, and, admirably, the vendors didn't appear interested in gouging concert-goers ($1 water $4 fries $5 burger, and a Bud 16oz. aluminum for $7). Once a popular amusement park, the rides and coaster were removed in the late 1980s, and the land was recently purchased by the Iron Horse Group. I was surprised to not see any excavators or bulldozers parked in some corner of the gently-sloped clearing in the woods-- they must have just left-- because the place was close to perfect, in terms of terrain. The Flaming Lips was the largest show at Mountain Park so far: 3,500, with tickets still available at the door. If event organizers wanted to overcrowd this place like they do at Saratoga Performing Arts Center, there would have been 10,000 of us crawling all over the hill, scampering for blanket-space, failing to stretch out on the freshly-unrolled, deep green grass. As it was, we all had space; even if it had been crowded, the sound would have still been amazing. I haven't experienced many truly effective and enjoyable natural ampitheaters, but the placement of the stage was thoughtful, strategic, and well soundchecked.

Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips was disoriented in the schedules of the rest of the world, but ever-present in the moment of the show: at one point he mentioned to Steven Drozd their next two nights in New York City, but otherwise he was lost, mentioning twice how he hadn't realized it was Saturday night ("I thought it was Wednesday, or Tuesday, or something"), and appreciating the venue from his place of not-knowing ("I don't know where we are, but this is sure a nice place... whoever's doing this should keep it up").

The day of the week or the location of the venue is less important to the Flaming Lips, as their rock band philosophy continues to manifest in new musical and stage-antic ways: what is more important to Wayne, and the rest of the band, is the message, which is strategically intertwined with the music. At Bonnaroo, I saw them present a 70-minute set to precede their midnight cover of Dark Side of the Moon-- and they rollicked through the confetti, lights, and streamers, punching the crowd with immense bass riffs from their latest album, Embryonic. At Mountain Park, the setting of those new riffs-turned-songs from Embryonic helped support the music in a new way: a song whose main lyric is "when she smiles" (and not the Clouds Taste Metallic ballad) served as the opener, and I imagined Wayne was singing passionately about his wife, even as he climbed upon the shoulders of a man wearing a bear costume; a long, thoughtful song about dreams, though built around many, many gunshot-style paradiddles, was made all the more useful and important given Wayne's introductory pleading ("tell me this is not a dream!"); "See The Leaves" interrupted the mellow, singalong feeling of a section of the second set, being a song about "violence against violence," and featured crafty video montages of animals' teeth, open-jawed and poised for attack.

New material was not overshadowed by older and popular songs, and perhaps this is the Lips' finest achievement; for selfish reasons I don't believe they should remain, as they are in concert, completely ignorant of their masterwork, The Soft Bulletin. Some of the new material sounds like old stuff-- the chorus of the Lips pre-fame "Unconciously Screamin'," for example, may have fit as a bridge into most new jams. "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" was the farthest reach back into their catalog; if one ancient song had fit the show, it would have been "Lightning Strikes the Postman." Once, I felt as though I was enduring the strange synth thunder found on the unreleased "The Captain," only to realize I was hearing more Embryonic material.

Some songs were played by a Zeppelin-worthy hard rock outfit; some songs sounded like an un-nervous Pink Floyd cover band who forgot half their gear (plainly, Steven commented to Wayne after a tremendously effective exploratory moment, "that was a nice psychedelic jam, Wayne"); some songs, strummed by Wayne alone and accompanied by Steven on keys/guitar/vocals, sounded more like a John Linnell-John Flansburgh duet than I had ever, ever expected from the Lips (most notably, "I Can Be A Frog"). Wayne was challenged to introduce "The Ya Ya Ya Song," a punchy anti-Bush cheer that, he tried to explain, has not outlived its usefulness.

Surely it has not, because "The Ya Ya Ya Song," as well as much of the newer material, only gave Steven Drozd a playground in which to frolick: a mad musical genius, I had been wowed by his multi-instrumental performance during two sets at Bonnaroo, but one could tell he had a Task At Hand. At Mountain Park, Steven warmed up, playing synthetic strings, electric pianos, and hammering away at his customized double-neck-turned-single-neck twelve string electric guitar. The talkbox became essential during "The Ya Ya Ya Song," and he began to have only more fun with it, singing along with all of his guitar notes. I've heard Trey, Zappa and others espouse the value of singing along with your instrument; I've never seen someone pursue that so accurately, vigorously, musically onstage. And besides, Steven may be taking singing lessons: if the song called for a high E, he shot for it, and seldom missed. Of course, who knows what electronic modifications may lie beneath the layers of road-sign-orange duct tape all over Steven's keyboard and pedal rigs-- but no amount of gear can replace such musicianship. The more harmonies he sang, the more I realized how Steven may be the 21st century's Brian Wilson: Smile.

"In the Morning of the Magicians" was one of the finest live Lips songs I've ever seen, and by far the best song at Mountain Park. This most majestic moment came two-thirds of the way through the evening, as Wayne exclaimed with pride the ability to give love ("to a tree, to an animal, to a person, to a piece of fuckin' food you cook"), you may know that love will always find you, "and so I will give you my love," he said, as he leaned over and gave as much of the crowd a hug as he could-- the first crowd hug I've ever seen. Steven sang all his critical guitar notes as well, and a pair of plastic shakers were critical percussion through the verses. Wayne sang "what is love and what is hate/the calculations error/is to love just a waste?," and the moon rose over the rolling hills of western Massachusetts, and the rain held off, and the video screen showed, in well-timed repitition, the face of a woman dancing in a 1960s esctacy, we were all made to fall in love with life again, with confetti and the crowd around us.