Gig Review: The Flaming Lips At Zepp Haneda, Tokyo, Japan
A Flaming Lips show like no other.
The Flaming Lips' records have always felt like they were gently handed to you by a temporary, sacred, figure - like a gift from someone fleeting. Maybe it was the family drifter who shows up to the function without warning, the secret lover in the loft, or that music supply teacher who never followed the syllabus. Or maybe, it was just their artwork that caught your eye as a kid stood on tippy toes, watching the needle drop - a moment that boomerangs it's way back to you years later, crate digging as an adult. Their music finds you via a genuine route. The Flaming Lips’ discography isn’t force fed, it's not an algorithmic hand-me-down. It’s entrusted. There is meaning.
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots sits snugly as number 10 of 16 studio albums by The Flaming Lips. Wayne Coyne’s interpretation of a Niki de Saint Phalle sculpture brings to life a chubby, coral coloured robot with béziered legs, towering over a little Yoshimi P-We, featuring as the one of the more - if not the most - notable artworks amongst the catalogue. Over two decades since its release, the album and its travelling cosmic circus returns to the stage. Tonight the show lands in Zepp Haneda, Tokyo.
The music hall’s location proved hard for us to find. Our western sense of direction, ever shifting location pin and our collective inability to read a fucking train map, piled on minutes to our pilgrimage to the venue. After following the breadcrumbs given by kind strangers, brief moments of self doubt and intermittent repeats of “are you sure this is the right place?” and an additional 35 minutes, we found ourselves stumbling up the windy highway to Zepp's doors. Next time we’ll get a cab.
This evening’s joint headliner (but first the play), is Cornelius - the long running project of Setagaya-born Oyamada Keigo, a pioneer of the Shibuya-kei sound that dominated Japan’s music scene in the mid-to-late 90s. "A set not to miss on home soil" some might say, "a set we missed 90 percent of,” we'd say.
The fortunate minutes we did manage to catch were worth it, Star Fruits Surf Rider twinkled and bounced around the walls - leaving us thirsty for the rest of Fantasma. あなたがいるなら (Anata ga irunara) / If you are there (which for this track, we were :3 ) provided a soft landing for the end of the first act, the visuals from the accompanying music video collage the LED screen that silhouettes the band. As the band bows out, we are hungry for more, however, we are satisfied with the shimmering fragments we managed to catch.
During the act change over, the stage transforms, instruments and decorations fill the voids, assembling the next world as Wayne Coyne counts down the final minutes backstage. The space is swallowed in darkness. A lone flashlight scans the crowd, jittering across faces just as a fanfare erupts. "The test begins now…” ripples to the edges of the room, 4 giant robots take turns to expand and sway side-to-side as Fight Test’s bass stirs to life. Every light, laser and pixel sprint through the gates as if its their final race. A suited Coyne, sings defiant between the legs of the inflatable towers. Arms outstretched to an infinite sky, “I don’t know how a man decides, what’s right for his own life, it’s all a mystery” he calls.
The band flows almost immediately into One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21, the giants deflate, Yoshimi P-We stands revealed bashing the drums. The lasers scan the cheers as Coyne calls for karate chops indicating the next track. “HEY, HEY” we slice the air in a spiky unison. The LED screen drips colours around the lyrics to Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1, colours you forgot existed. Synths swell and bloat like a rising tide. Coyne sings with raw sincerity, like a man holding a boombox beneath someone’s window, heart first.
With the next breath, Pt. 2 begins. Yoshimi bursts onto the scene, born screaming, bolting in and out in hooded checkered blur. Coyne stands armed with a confetti cannon, a grin barely hiding behind the mayhem. They take turns leading the charge, the band gallops alongside. The lasers frantically ignite, reverse-psychologising any remanence of a migraines past. Each stress of the day and the life thus far bursts with each confetti canon pull. Giant balloons jiggle above outstretched hands. “We love you, We love you” Coyne says, and you know, he means it.
A full moment passes between tracks. Coyne addresses Tokyo, only to be intercepted mid-sentence by a rogue balloon the crowd are too polite to burst, “We should pop it - we have plenty more,” he laughs, gently nudging the show forward. He re-introduces the night, highlighting its rarity - and the specialness of Yoshimi’s presence.
We drift into In the Morning The stage looks vulnerable now, with only digital decorations remaining. All members are visible. Coyne blares the trumpet, Yoshimi mirrors, the collective sound piercing through to depths of the belly of the audience.
Superfans may clock Steve Drodz’s absence. Reddit rumours and the occasional youtube comment litter the internet speculating as to where he is. Coyne does not address - and honestly, it doesn't matter (not to sound like a dick or anything), if you’re coming to a Flaming Lips show to see one specific member and ignore literally everything else, maybe the show ain't for you my friend.
To bookend Are You a Hypnotist and lead into In the SummerTime, Coyne collects his sentences. Without naming anything clinically, he touches on the big D(epression), how it's almost worse in the summer, its claws on your back seem to sink deeper with the increasing daylight hours, when there's so much life happening around you and how difficult it is shake the weight off and recognise the beauty in the blooming chaos. “-to sing about it doesn’t defeat it, but I think as long as your singing about it, its not able to get you.” how songs and singing offer us a vessel for peace. chirping birds, call us into the start of the song.
Coyne introduces the next track, as inflatables handler Zack scurries across the stage with a rainbow streaming from his backpack, like a Ghostbuster on a mission. During Do You Realise??’s introduction, Coyne leans into some sweet crowd work, encouraging us to tell the people we came with, that we love them - to say it more often, because it’s easy to forget, and it really shouldn’t be a weird thing. Bleary eyed we turn to each other and our concert neighbours and tell them we love them, despite varying language barriers, the message is understood. During the interval random chicks in the bathroom will appear to walk through walls to repeat Coyne's words.
The closing tracks of Yoshimi Battles.. unfold. We are reminded of how flawless this record truly is. Experiencing it live seals it.
The lights turn off to mark the interval, giddy fans applaud, buzzed and breathless, soaking in the past hour of their lives like it was a lucid dream.
We return with the hits, Coyne whips a stream of silver and launches balloons into the sea as we jangle through She Don’t Use Jelly. Guitar sliders sneak a nice little shimmer into the verses. Balloons outnumber us and are eventually burst by the drummer one by one as the song closes. Two giant eyeballs with beefy legs and snow boots flank Coyne as he introduces The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song. He bounces a toothy, plump-lipped mouth as he calls “With all your power” the sky. The eyeballs frantically jiggle. The silliness is unmatched.
A Spoonful Weighs a Ton follows, offering some emotional depth amongst all the absurdity. “LOVE” pulses the LED screen in bold, the tears are in a full unstoppable flow now, but there's nothing sad about anything happening here.
Coyne climbs into a bubble for the final song of the night, Race for the Prize. Everything is thrown in, textures and layers of saturation coat the chorus. A “Fuck Yeah Tokyo” balloon is thrown into the crowd as a final parting gift.
There’s a physicality and rule-less-ness to Flaming Lips shows that genuinely reflect the music. The shows aren’t pretentious or desperate to be platformed over socials as the cultural event that you had to be seen (br)at (don’t @ me). They aren't vapid or hollow. They are alive and real and hard to explain, even rewatching the stream now, doesn’t capture it, although it serves as a very special postcard. The show is a lot, but its not exhausting or really even that cathartic or deep (even in the tender moments), its just fun, its a breath outside of what's happening.
In a world that’s so easy to be angry at, the show is rooted in love. A safe haven. A softener for the edges of the triangles of sadness that's' ridges grow deeper as we age. There is life in their music - a weird, wonderful, fragile kind of life, that isn’t sure of the outside, but is still kind and mighty.