A Good Tulsa Review We Came Across...

Tulsans embarked on an electrifying, magical mystery tour of psychedelic sights and sounds Friday as more than 12,000 people swarmed the Diversafest music festival's main stage in downtown Tulsa.

The attraction? That night's headlining act, Oklahoma's own psychedelic rock powerhouse, the Flaming Lips.

As the crowds at the entry gates grew, revelers waved their paper tickets as if they had won Wonka's Golden Ticket. They waited in lines that snaked for blocks in order to redeem their prizes -- admittance wrist bands and an opportunity to watch one of the most anticipated live acts to hit Tulsa in years.

"This is going to be the best night of my life!" yelled a manly voice from behind a furry mask. His bear costume looked stiflingly hot, but those tiny pink-lined ears were oh-so-cute. "Flaming Lips, here I come!" he yelled, running, voice fading as he exited earshot. Yep, with the Flaming Lips, it's always that kind of party.

The rush was on.

By showtime, security guards turned away fans. The venue had hit capacity. Crowds surged forward toward the gates as the band prepared to take the stage, some even hopping the 10-foot chain-link fences in order to get in.

Dfest co-founder Tom Green welcomed Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor to the stage, who welcomed the Flaming Lips to Dfest for its first Tulsa show in 12 years. She was barely audible over the crowd's roar.

"Give a great Tulsa welcome to the Flaming Lips!" Taylor said.

A countdown was flashed on the screen behind the stage. As it hit one, a monstrous, glittering, smoking, blinking UFO loomed over the stage, delivering the band to ground zero -- guitarist, keyboardist and singer Steven Drozd, drummer Kliph Scurlock and bassist Michael Ivins were ushered out by a man in a muscled Captain America suit.

Lead singer Wayne Coyne emerged atop the craft and stood in a huge plastic bubble as fans watched, awestruck. Drozd overlayed the scene in an orchestral, space-age, rumbling rhythm as Coyne wobbled down the craft and rolled on to the crowd's raised hands, which passed him farther out before he was was finally rolled back onto the stage, a huge smile on his face. The audience realizes that Coyne's antics are as comical as they are whimsically endearing. The audience is in rapture.

The band launched into "Race for the Prize," Coyne dousing the audience with clouds from a handheld fog machine, which he would use throughout the night. A herd of dancing Santas and purple-dressed cheerleaders gyrated and jumped on both sides of the stage.

The nearly two-hour fearless freakout love-in had officially begun.

After the audience had been drowned in a torrent of orange and yellow confetti, Coyne informally greeted the audience as if it were an old friend, reminiscing about the last time the band played Tulsa, at Mohawk Park in 1995.

The band also resurrected the raucous "Mountain Side," from its 1990 release "In a Priest Driven Ambulance," which culminated in Coyne's gong-blasting windup, Ivins' fuzzed out, driving bass riffs propelling the song, and was made completely surreal with blinking rainbows cut with video of car crashes flashing on the screen behind the band.

After a downtempo singalong to "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots," the band tripped mellow with "Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung" and "Vein of Stars" before Coyne marched into a crowd favorite and singalong, "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song."

And be assured the Willy Wonka of rock wouldn't be put off by a cranky fan. Nor would the audience.

When a fan walked onstage and confronted a mystified-looking Coyne at his microphone about his opposition to President Bush, he deflected him with humor.

"He said he knew George Bush and George Bush is listening and he's pissed," he said as Captain America led the man off in a hugging embrace. "So come on everybody!" he joked as he started into the protest song as if he'd never been interrupted, Scurlock's drum cadence leading the way.

By the time the band wound up its show with "Do You Realize?" the crowd was pie-eyed on love with itself, hands raised in unison as it sang along, "Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?"

A tiny young woman in a white shirt and the largest plastic bracelets I've ever seen turned to me and said, tears in her eyes, "Hold my beer?" She wiped her black mascara onto her tee and grinned, confetti stuck to her chin.

What other band out there can make its entire audience laugh and weep at the same time? It's as touching as it is surprising.

Known to play the occasional cover, encores are often special experiences for fans, too.

The Lips ended with an encore by the Rolling Stones, "Moonlight Mile," as a full moon hung heavy over the downtown Tulsa skyline. The band waved its farewells and boarded its ship, gone with a sigh of smoke. People looked around, dazed. Nearly two hours had passed like the flick of a switch.

As security guards roused fans from the stage area, reality slowly crept back in. Scurlock returned to the stage with manager Scott Booker and signed a cymbal for a fan. Friends ran into friends they'd lost in the mass swarm toward the stage before the show.

Clocks started ticking again.

As the Wonka ticket states, "In your wildest dreams you can not imagine the marvelous surprises that await you."

The Flaming Lips blew our minds.