[ATTENDED: August 5, 2025] The Flaming Lips
I have now seen The Flaming Lips eight times. Even when they play many of the same songs a lot, it’s always a fun and joy-filled experience.
And for the first time, I was right on the barrier to see them right up close. So close that when they deflated the pink robots, I got to touch one!
The last time we saw them it was for the Yoshimi tour which was an evening with the Lips. So this 75 minute set was considerably shorter, but it was a great compact set with three songs I’d never heard them play before!
They opened with an instrumental from The Soft Bulletin. This was my first exposure to the new lineup of the band. Steven Drozd is sitting out this tour and was replaced by AJ Slaughter who I was right in front of (I admit I was bummed that I was right in front of Steven’s spot but it wasn’t him! Although his broken double neck guitar was there!
Slaughter did a great job playing all of Drozd’s parts and even added some pedal steel guitar which was a fantastic addition to the songs.
This was also the first time I’ve seen them with only one drummer in ages.
But the fewer musicians seemed to give room to more on stage antics. They played parts one and two of Yoshimi and there were four giant inflatable robots filling the stage. During part two, the confetti cannons were on full blast and I was right in the middle of it all. Wayne also shot off his hand held confetti cannons and the delight on everyone’s faces was wonderful to be a part of. (more…)
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