The exhilaration of life and despair of death surround us in many different ways each and every moment of our lives. These days it seems like the peaceful times are the rarity, curled away between the news of horrible bloodshed in the middle east, crazed acts of terrorism or natural disasters. Few artists combine these two extremes of life quite as interestingly as The Flaming Lips. On a perfect spring day in Providence, RI the crowd at Brown University became the latest to experience this dynamic. Lead singer Wayne Coyne showed off a new gadget in his ever expanding chest of toys, this one appeared only to be a run-of-the-mill bugle but it was just a machine replica which has been programmed to digitally play a nearly indistinguishable version of the song "Taps". The U.S. Government has been using these since the number of military funerals began to outnumber the amount of buglers available to play them. The story of this bugle-shaped music player was sad enough as Coyne explained it...but then he started to play the device into the microphine while multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd hauntingly accompanied on keyboards.
Standing in that field at dusk amidst a few thousand college students with the ongoing horror in Iraq, it was hard not to be moved to tears. In that brief moment we were reminded of the hundreds of thousands of people (Iraqi and US) whose life had been lost in a war which lacked merit or even a clear purpose. It was hard to imagine where the show could go from there; it was too sad of a moment to follow-up with a few normal rock songs. But as soon as that thought entered my mind they seamlessly transitioned into the one song that made sense at that moment, “Waitin’ for a Superman”. The ballad, perhaps more than any other, evokes the regenerative power of the human spirit. Originally written about the death of Coyne's father, it reflects his coping with the sadness associated with the death of a loved one as well as the realization of our innate power to carry on....hope for the hopeless, and in an instant the heavy-hearted young crowd was overcome by a familiar sense of optimism and renewal. A beautiful moment to experience in the middle of a rock concert, a rare characteristic in modern music and also the trait which best defines The Flaming Lips.
There was also a "standard" Lips show. Which is, if you don’t already know, one the must-see rock spectacles of all-time. It was all at once powerful, fun, thought provoking, sad & life affirming. The Lips have become a truly unique force in the world of rock n' roll. After a 25-year workman like approach to writing and performing, we’re now seeing a voice that's evolved into an elder statesman in the industry.
Meanwhile life in the real world is not good. Some choose to criticize Mr. Coyne for his political and cultural rants but these are particularly ugly times in our world and, some would argue, for an artist to ignore that reality would be careless. Check out the shocking statistics below and let's all make what little effort we can to help convince the our fellow man aas well as the powers that be to stop this senseless killing.
This site is a pretty decent way to help stop the reckless bloodshed: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
