By: David de Young
 The Flaming Lips at the Witnness Festival, Dublin - Photo by David de Young - click for full size version. |
You should generally mistrust anyone who tells you they just saw the concert of a lifetime. But I believe I just did.
As you may know, Jack White of the White Stripes was injured in a car crash in Detroit while celebrating his 27th birthday last Wednesday, fracturing his left hand. This accident caused major logistical changes at the two festivals he was to play on Saturday and Sunday, Saturday at Scotland's T in the Park and Sunday at Dublin's Witnness Festival, both of which were to have featured the White Stripes as the second band from the top of the bill on the main stages.
Festival organizers made what should go down in history as a brilliant move when they replaced the White Stripes with the Flaming Lips. I can't think of anyone but the most hard core Flaming Lips fan who might have been disappointed by what lay in store.
The Flaming Lips emerged with an entourage of dancing people in animal costumes and two blow up suns (again filled with people). Wayne Coyne himself was dressed in a white suit with a red shirt, pointing out that he and his band were dressing as the White Stripes in tribute. Coyne had also splattered himself with red fake blood. If you think that's in poor taste, you're probably wrong. It was, however, eerily reminiscent of the June 2003 cover story in Q magazine (Meg and Jack were both spattered in red paint for the photo shoot.)
The Lips opened up with a brilliant cover of the Stripes' "7 Nation Army" rounded out with plenty of playful dancing by the animals on stage and Coyne singing through a megaphone while throwing tons of confetti into the audience, much of which ended up in his hair and stuck to the blood on his face.
Huge, huge balloons (3-4 feet in diameter) were sent floating out into the crowd to be bounced around by joyful concert goers finishing off their two day stand at Punchestown Racecourse. (The festival had been moved this year from Ferryhouse Racecourse, it's home for its first three years of existence, for more space.) The balloons reminded me of the bouncing balls that patrol "The Village" in the Prisoner TV series filmed at Portmeirion in Wales.
The show featured the song about the fiber optic Jesus that Jack White purportedly gave to Wayne Coyne as a gift before a show in Detroit some time back. "Thank you, Jack White for the fiber optic Jesus that you gave me. It shined so bright that I really did believe that it could save me" is my recollection of the chorus to which Coyne encouraged us all to sing along.
Another sing along was Happy Birthday, which Coyne said if we sang loud enough that Tim from the Polyphonic Spree had said they would actually stop their set at the other end of the festival grounds and sing along. (He had his time off by a bit, because the Polyphonic Spree didn't actually start to play until right around when the Flaming Lips finished.)
Otherwise, the Flaming Lips own material was simply out of this world. Songs from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, including the Lips most recent UK hit "Do You Realize" were indescribable. Everyone around me was screaming out the lyrics and seemed to know them all. You must trust me that I was momentarily transported to heaven while singing "Do you realize that everyone....you know...some day....will die?" as a light rain started to fall as dusk was setting over Ireland. (There is nothing in this world that compares to seeing live music with grass under your feet and sky overhead.)
All I could say to anyone standing beside me was "This is fucking legendary!" I was in the midst of history being made, the gig of a lifetime, the concert of the decade, and I was fully aware of it. The Flaming Lips performance alone would have made my trip to Europe worthwhile in and of itself even if nothing else had happened.
And when it was over? What to do but march on down and have the Polyphonic Spree bring us down gently by blowing us all away once again.
I can't imagine a more perfect way to end the last day of a European vacation, a weekend, or a festival.
Location Info:
Witness Festival
Artist Info: The Flaming Lips
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