GIG NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FIVE
Who
Nevertheless we were making reasonable time and headed to Finsbury Park Station to discover all the trains had just been cancelled thanks to some selfish cunt committing suicide thus shutting down the line! If anyone chooses to end it all in such an unbelievably inconsiderate way causing massive disruption for everyone else then screw them, but sadly it's the innocent family who suffer all the more from their actions. After wandering around the station to try and figure things out we decided to get on a bus to Ally Pally. Utilising our common sense, we presumed that the stop called Alexandra Palace would be the closest stop to the palace and got off the bus, then discovered that we'd been dumped halfway up the hill and the bus was making the rest of its way to the top without us. It's hard to know what to say when you encounter such retardation, as any fuckwit should be able to tell that naming a bus stop Alexandra Palace when it's not where you should exit for Alexandra Palace is perhaps the worst act of town planning in history. It makes me want to be a town planner as I know I could do better, but I'd probably end up fighting morons with no common sense to try to get anything done, so it may prove a frustrating career! Thankfully though the climb up the hill wasn't as arduous as it had been when we'd seen Arcade Fire here way back in 2007 as the bus had at least taken us some of the way up, and it was pretty cool to approach the awesome entrance and take in the views of London before heading inside. My primary concern had been a totally unexpected rule in the gig guide they'd emailed me stating that we needed to have our booking references handy to gain admission! This was jaw-dropping stuff as most people delete the confirmation email the second the tickets arrive, and the email telling us to do this failed to remind us what our booking reference was! I found it so shocking that I didn't believe they could possibly do it as nobody would have that information handy, and I was right, as they didn't do it anyway! Maybe it was just a lie they printed to try to discourage ticket touts but it's just unfair as the tout would sell the ticket and get their cash then it would be the poor punter who'd be refused admission as a result of this. Once we headed inside we admired the lobby, which contained some fully grown trees, and the album covers for the three LPs that would be played in full tonight were displayed above the entrance to the hall. It wasn't just The Flaming Lips who'd be playing albums in full, but Deerhoof and Dinosaur Jr too!
Sadly though the homosexual elements of the evening weren't over yet as it turned out we'd managed to miss all of Deerhoof thanks to the delays in getting there! Apparently it had taken 90 minutes to travel to Ally Pally so, even if I had taken more notice of the running times, we probably would have missed it all anyway thanks to the suicide twat! I also wondered if I'd missed any speech or appearance by Wayne as a result of this? I'd had been mightily pissed if I was a Deerhoof fan, but they hadn't impressed me that much when I'd seen them supporting The Flaming Lips back in 2006 at Birmingham NIA and the one song I had on my iPod (The Galaxist) made me doubt they'd changed very much. It's still a shame as they're quite interesting to watch and I'd have liked to have seen how their act has changed over the last five years. The day before we'd been extremely concerned about having enough water due to the Arcade Fire show being a few hours longer and the outdoor setting, but this time around we didn't bother at all. It didn't seem to make much difference either but I guess I'd had got myself a bottle if I wasn't now so keen to just get inside, secure a spot and start enjoying some live music! It wasn't too hard to get a decent place inside the arena and also the show was relatively free of the embarrassing scenes of pushing and shoving I'm so used to. Unusually, balloons were dangling from the ceiling on strings, which made me wonder if this was a health and safety concession due to the swankiness of the venue? I'd read that the band didn't bring any balloons when they'd played Blackpool Ballroom due to the risk of shattering a chandelier and killing all their fans, so thought there may have been similar concerns at play here. A few boos rung out when some tossers managed to pop a couple of the balloons, and once the balloons were popped the strings were subtly taken away as superfluous to requirements. Wayne was hanging around as expected and so was Michael Ivins sporting a baseball cap. I'd been wearing one all day due to the sun's hatred for my skin tone and I figured that, if it was good enough for Ivins, it was good enough for me! I don't agree with The Libertines at all when they say there's something wrong with baseball caps - skateboarding is the American tradition which should have no place in our country, or indeed anywhere outside the Back To The Future trilogy, but there's nothing wrong with baseball caps! Also they're much better than the headgear that The Libertines like to sport anyway!
But anyway, before I knew it Dinosaur Jr took to the stage to perform Bug. Wayne watched the first few tracks from behind a speaker to the left of us and was nodding appreciatively and I'd hammered the life out of the few songs I had on my iPod beforehand. For some strange reason though I'd never actually checked to see if any of those tunes were on the Bug album so I couldn't really blame the band that they didn't play any of the ones I knew! The band looked rather like Nirvana and the lead singer had an impressive head of grey hair. However I expect they're sick of the comparisons as they pre-date Nirvana and Cobain most probably nicked their style to an extent anyway. They played a bloody loud and rather rocking set which probably would have meant a lot more if I'd known the songs! Kliph was sitting on the right with a toddler who was kitted out in headphones who amusingly was banging some drums along to the music. Something which I've only just found out as I'm writing this review was that their bassist is in fact Lou Barlow, who was brilliantly name-checked on Lark Descending by Half Man Half Biscuit with the lyric "I could have been like Lou Barlow, but I'm more like Ken Barlow!" If I'd had known this in advance I'd had enjoyed this a lot more, so that's a shame. Dinosaur Jr only mixed it up for the last song when Barlow took to the mic to take over lead vocals, asking us if he should screw up his voice for us to get the most out of the track. I don't know if he did or didn't, as the fact was you couldn't hear him over the music, so he either wasn't trying or the soundman had failed to do his job properly! Now I know he was Lou Barlow though my respect has grown, and a lot of the crowd seemed to really enjoy it, and probably not just due to their name-check by HMHB! The Flaming Lips were advertised as playing from 9:15 and my main questions was whether they'd be playing the UK version of The Soft Bulletin and what they'd do for an encore. I'd certainly be taken by surprise later. Wayne found time for a lengthy health and safety briefing as he'd done in Birmingham less than two years before, warning us that if we can't handle the strobe lights then just don't look at them as the next song would probably be less intense! He also gave us the news we wanted to hear by confirming that he'd be climbing into his bubble tonight, and shuffled about onstage to try to identify the exact spot where Syd Barrett had stood back in the 1960s when he'd played the venue! Their decision to cover The Dark Side Of The Moon in full is not one I quite understand and I'm grateful that I was seeing the Lips doing their own material rather than the full Floyd covers show which they were also playing around this time.
Wayne warned us that singing these songs in the order they appear on the album is quite emotionally intense for him and that'd they'd performed it a few times before, but the real moment I'd been waiting for was a soundcheck! They came the closest they'd come to doing it properly since that glorious day back at V2000, with the only element missing being that Wayne didn't introduce it properly and point along with us! I was delighted to capture some of it on video and the picture you see above was proudly taken during the soundcheck. The roadies by now had dropped the curtain and we had a good view of the rear of the venue, and it also unveiled the semi-gong shaped video screen which I'm reasonably sure is the same one they'd used as for Birmingham. It looked a lot smaller but I figure that's because the stage and room were so much larger. We had a pretty decent position and the massive-heads-in-front situation was no worse than average either. Wayne's wife Michelle was also prominent, taking a couple of shots of Wayne with his fist triumphantly in the air and the crowd behind him waving to the camera. He was acting like a tourist and I took this as a very positive sign that this show meant a lot to them and we'd have a special night ahead of us. Rather annoyingly Wayne said that the start would be delayed a bit due to the problems on the trains, which I think is especially unfair as anybody who'd set out reasonably early would be here by now. The only people who'd miss out if the band started promptly were those who'd cut it too fine and were arriving late anyway, so I say sod them. The thought that the encore may have been shortened as a result of this didn't bear thinking about, but in the end I'm pretty sure it had no effect. Once everything was checked and set up the show opened apparently just five minutes late with The Captain Is A Cold Hearted And Egotistical Fool, which I read is an outtake from The Soft Bulletin DVD. This went over my head though as it was basically just an introduction track anyway and I was far more interested in how the band would come onstage this time! Sadly they didn't come out of a vagina in the stage as it was just a door in the screen with no subliminal meaning. However it's still an incredible way to make an entrance and the ramp that the guys had to walk down looked truly terrifying! As usual Steven took to his mic with the high-pitched effect to say "thank you" and the ramp was then taken away to reveal that Wayne had been hiding underneath it inside his bubble all along!
He kneeled on the floor and reached for the air as the bubble slowly inflated then, once he was ready, he burst into the crowd, but sadly I didn't get a hand on it! Strangely enough I don't recall touching a single balloon throughout the whole show, which was probably due to the baseball cap restricting my view! Once Wayne made his way back to the stage the band quickly burst into a typically delirious take on Race For The Prize, as countless balloons were unleashed, proving that the balloons-on-strings were an addition to the Lips experience rather than being a substitute! I decided to mosh and enjoyed it immensely, but safe in the knowledge that the next song would be equally incredible. A Spoonful Weighs A Ton may in fact have been the highlight of the evening for the simple reason that the original Teletubbies video had made a comeback! The crowd went utterly insane and bellowed the words back at the band and I got out my camera to film some more amazing footage. One point of interest was that Steven looked exactly the same on the video when he appeared for the drum solo as he does now, making me wonder if the band had partly re-recorded it? Either way, the magic was still there as the Teletubbies bumped into each other in time to the song, and I wouldn't be surprised if this video had been reinstated due to fan pressure as I don't think I was the only person who appreciated it! This may be a good time to mention that the "dancers" today were mostly girls dressed at Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz, with a lion and a tin man, plus presumably a scarecrow. Although I was closer to the stage than I'd been for Arcade Fire it was still hard to tell, plus my attention was mostly focused on watching the band anyway. Next up, of course, was The Spark That Bled, but all I really remember is the shocker that Wayne didn't bother with the fake blood! The next part though was even more surprising as the band deviated from The Soft Bulletin to play Laser Hands. It was a powerful instrumental I'd never heard before which was mainly an opportunity for Wayne to get out his giants hands and, incredibly, lights came out of the palms so, when he pointed them at the disco ball, we were all bathed in the rays. It was random and brilliant but, at the same time, a slightly cheeky deviation from playing the album in order like they should have been doing.
Wayne declared that the next song was going to be Slow Motion and they'd only ever played it live once before and it hadn't really worked out! His honestly was refreshing and it also confirmed that the band were playing the UK version of the album tonight and that they'd been playing the US version to other audiences. The fact they bothered changing it for us was greatly appreciated but I'll never quite understand why record labels feel they need to alter albums for different markets in the first place! Wayne asked us to sing along and scream so that, when future generations watched it on YouTube, they'll be able to say "wow, Wayne really gave that one his all!" It proved a brilliant tactic in getting us to support him and sing along but the band then proceeded to slow the song down anyway? I'm not sure why, but Wayne also said it was a studio number that they hadn't given much thought about playing live before, so I guess there must be some practical reason that made them change it like this? However it was totally blown out of the water by the best ever rendition of What Is the Light?, which blew me away thanks to the simple trick of projecting the words onto the screen in front of a space backdrop. It then segued beautifully into The Observer to conclude one of the most pleasant surprises of the evening. I'd been especially looking forwards to hearing Waitin' For A Superman so was rather disappointed that they didn't do it properly. The introduction is probably the best bit, and no rendition would be complete without the classic video or Wayne producing a glove puppet. I'm not quite sure what was going on but can only assume that the band simply have got completely sick of the song, as it was just Wayne backed by a piano and it was slowed down, sadly with much of the life taken out of it. Just before they started it a guy in a Superman costume suddenly appeared standing on someone's shoulders but then promptly vanished, leaving Wayne to say a couple of times "hey, where did Superman go?" It was all rather strange, as who would want to grab Wayne's attention and then simply vanish, but it did leave us all waiting for a superman in the most literal sense of the word possible!
It could have been around this point where Wayne introduced the band, with Michael probably getting the biggest cheer, which is always nice seeing as he's been there for 30 years! Also the band declared that the young guy who was on stage with them who I think was on keyboards was in fact just 14 years old, which is something of a shocker! I remember little of Suddenly Everything Has Changed as it was somewhat overshadowed by The Gash, which was delivered in all its V2000 glory thanks to the use of the weird jumping girls video! Few songs get me so excited but I restrained myself a bit as I was intent on filming some of it. I think it was at around this point where a gong was wheeled onto the stage but I can't remember it being used, although there was a hell of a lot of stuff going on so it's hard to be sure! Feeling Yourself Disintegrate was another disappointment as I'd been singing the "bra ta ta, bra ta ta ta ta ta ta"'s to myself quite a bit after watching a few extraordinary seconds of live footage from 2000 where Wayne fully tackled the introduction. In fact it's on The Fearless Freaks DVD and it's a real shame that I can't see the full thing, especially when the bonus footage on the DVD consists of really early live recordings with little merit but to demonstrate how far The Flaming Lips have come. It also really says something that catching a couple of seconds of Flaming Lips circa 2000 footage could blow my mind so much but it just goes to show how fantastic they were back then! Wayne announced that the song was a motherfucker to sing but then went on to slow it down drastically and even resisted the urge to duet with a glove puppet, so he was hardly giving us the full experience! It was a shame to see the band sabotaging their songs, as The Flaming Lips can still be so good when they try. I can only assume they want to mix things up a bit and get sick of the tunes in their original formats, but Superman and Disintegrate had definitely been spoiled by the changes, whereas The Spark That Bled and Slow Motion had lost some of their edge too.
Surprisingly the album was then concluded with a moving take on Sleeping On The Roof. I hadn't expected the remixed versions of Race For The Prize or Waitin' For A Superman, and frankly they're a waste of space on the original LP, but I had presumed that Buggin' would be the finale. I guess it's regarded as a bonus track, but Sleeping On The Roof is a stunner, even though it's a little low-key to be a closer. The band left the stage and a guy came onstage to try and split the crowd down the middle and get each side to cheer. I'd seen it happen before much more effectively and I think it was a different guy doing it, but either his heart wasn't in it or the band were very keen to come back out to do their encore, as it just never got going! My heart sank again when Do You Realize?? was started off in yet another slow rendition but thankfully they then showed the classic video screen introduction, unleashed the glitter cannon and did it properly. In fact it was utterly triumphant and the intro probably improved it, it just was hard to enjoy when I thought it was at the expense of a proper version! I shot another video and I seem to always forget that the Lips like to play an x-rated version of the video with a topless girl repeatedly kicking the screen and dancing furiously. I'm sure I've seen it before, but I can't remember when! Also the band did an extended outro and when they left the stage they started to play What A Wonderful World over the tannoy, surprisingly indicating that it was all over. This was a nasty surprise as I'd anticipated another half dozen tunes so all my efforts in hearing the full back catalogue hadn't proved much help at all! However, considering what happened next, it's probably best that the band didn't finish any later. We left the venue as quickly as we could after seeing how long the queues for the toilets or water were and just started walking. We'd presumed that the buses would be rammed and didn't really know where to go but figured that following the crowd down the hill would be the best course of action.
We certainly didn't get lost but it would have been a lot faster if we'd just had stayed put and waited patiently for a bus to come along. We walked through Alexandra Palace Station after getting caught in the crowd but decided it was too busy and the trains were too infrequent so continued following the rest of the crowd who were going to Wood Green tube station. We had a time out to grab a Coke and it was long overdue and delightfully refreshing but after that slice of product placement we continued and finally reached the station. Things were going reasonably well now but, when we reached Green Park and tried changing onto the Victoria line, we were utterly pissed off to find we couldn't get on the train as it was so busy! I'll never understand why the service is reduced between 11pm and midnight, as it's one of the busiest times of the day when everyone needs to get home! After wasting some time trying to get on board we decided we couldn't be bothered to wait any longer so walked to Victoria train station, annoyingly having to go all the way around a large palace which was blocking our way - Buckingham Palace! After misreading the timetable at first and getting another Coke we found we'd missed the train by 1 minute anyway and it would be a full hour before the next service! I'd heard that Victoria was a 24 hour station but once an hour is pretty poor to be honest! Thankfully we found a night bus which was sort-of going our way and eventually arrived back at 2am, which was pretty fucking ridiculous considering we'd left the venue at 11pm! Thankfully I didn't have to worry about going into work tomorrow, but my opinion of London transport and the convenience of Alexandra Palace had fallen considerably after this night! Maybe we should have researched it a bit more closely as apparently there was a direct bus, so I'll bear that in mind next time I guess.
Ultimately it didn't particularly matter as I felt pretty good the next day and we went to Hampton Court Palace, which was a delightful finale to an exciting week for me. It took me over a month to write up this review and with all the difficulties in trying to get back I sadly didn't have as much chance to reflect at the time as I would have liked. It's disappointing that The Flaming Lips had messed up some of their best songs but the highlights such as Race For The Prize, A Spoonful Weighs A Ton, What Is The Light?, The Gash and Do You Realize?? were utterly spectacular. I thought that Somewhere Over The Rainbow or The Spiderbite Song would have fitted in beautifully with The Soft Bulletin theme, but sadly due to the late start and the general length of time The Flaming Lips seem to spend between songs there just wasn't time. Tragically it was the first time the band hadn't played She Don't Use Jelly for me and there were no newbies or unexpected oldies thrown in. On the other hand though the setlist had been totally different to how it had been last time in 2009, with only Race For The Prize and Do You Realize?? surviving the cut. It's probably hard to complain when the band clearly were mixing things up a bit, although glancing at their non-Bulletin gig setlists of 2011 is worrying as they seem to have dropped Race For The Prize and the sets are generally looking rather weak! I find it hard to believe that The Flaming Lips could ever jump the shark, but Race For The Prize is now the only track they've played each time I've seem then, and I don't think they should drop it unless they find something startling to replace it with! A Clouds Taste Metallic tour wouldn't go amiss, as I firmly believe it's the strongest Lips album by far as it has no bad tracks on there. Alternately it would be even better if the band could go off and write a defining album to knock Clouds off its perch, but that would be quite a challenge!
Mark: 9.0/10
The Flaming Lips
Support
Dinosaur Jr
Where
London Alexandra Palace
When
1st July 2011
Price
£40.00
Who with
Matt
Position
Towards the front
Comments
Arcade Fire playing a definitive greatest hits set in Hyde Park and The Flaming Lips playing The Soft Bulletin at Alexandra Palace on consecutive nights? Quite simply no sane human being could resist, so with 60 million people in the country, including 8 million in the capital, it's shocking that both events didn't sell out in seconds. I wonder how many people went to both? Probably just a couple of thousand, but I guess I wouldn't be able to get in anywhere if everyone else had such good taste! To prepare myself I heard the entire Flaming Lips back catalogue including music DVDs, as well as The Soft Bulletin a few times. It's a good album for sure but it's patchy, and there's little doubt that Guerrilla by SFA beats it to the title of Album Of The Year 1999. I decided to wear my legendary yellow Flaming Lips t-shirt which amazingly was now eight and a half years old but was sadly still covered in boot prints thanks to a drinking incident at Manchester Academy! Also from what I can gather the show was eventually a sell-out but I can't begin to understand how anyone who claims to love music could fail to be there. In fact my ticket was number 5653 so there was a fair sized crowd in the end. We spent the day before the show in London Zoo which was exactly the kind of place that The Flaming Lips would choose to be hanging out judging from the live DVD at Oklahoma Zoo. Sadly we didn't see the band but I do tend to rarely spot the celebs anyway. We saved some funds by getting 2 for 1 admission which was sadly wiped out by a truly extortionate purchase of a £4 bottle of coke once we got inside! After taking hundreds of photos on my dodgy camera we exited the zoo and walked along the canal to Camden Town, visiting a Chinese all-you-can-eat. It's always a risk to stuff your face before a live show but Flaming Lips gigs rarely have fearsome moshpits. However we then made the mistake of visiting The Hawley Arms - famous as the late Amy Winehouse's local - for a pint of Budvar on tap, but by this point I was so full on ice cream I physically had no room left for a beer, especially a relatively fizzy one. After a few moments of worry that I'd spoiled my entire evening I recovered and we started to make our way to the venue. Doors were opening at 6:30pm but we were in no particular hurry. I'd been emailed the set times beforehand but, in all the excitement of having a full week to plan, hadn't really taken the information in.
Setlist (Dinosaur Jr)
Freak Scene
No Bones
They Always Come
Yeah We Know
Let It Ride
Pond Song
Budge
The Post
Don't
Setlist (The Flaming Lips)
The Captain Is A Cold Hearted And Egotistical Fool
Race For The Prize
A Spoonful Weighs A Ton
The Spark That Bled
Laser Hands
Slow Motion
What Is the Light?
The Observer
Waitin' For A Superman
Suddenly Everything Has Changed
The Gash
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
Sleeping On The Roof
Do You Realize??
