High Masculine Tones

I grew up on rock music, pledging my depraved teen patriotism to Rock Nation, but my disaffection with the genre has grown steadily the past few years. Some of the blame might be directed to the demise of the tapedeck in our car, and the resulting ravages of commercial rock radio -- a demographically formatted aural regime, an apocaplyse of the human spirit. There's also my own involuntary descent into adulthood... for as I sink deeper into my thirties, a crunchy guitar laid over a 4/4 beat starts to feel less like deliverance and more like a guilty pleasure, at best.

So it was with some trepidation that I ventured to a soulless outdoor venue -- the first concert for both myself and my partner since the birth of our son ten months ago -- to catch a bill headlined by The Flaming Lips... a band whose CD's I've long enjoyed (though never seen live), and still respected, but... I was prepared for the familiar letdown that I've come to expect at such events.

The venue certainly did suck, and I'll indulge a brief, parch-throated rant on the unavailability of drinking water at the show -- no drinking fountains, no taps available in the washrooms (port-a-potties), and a thirty minute lineup at the sole concession stand yielding nothing but lemonade. The bastards refused to fill my water bottle from a tap in a sink less than two feet away. Other patrons told me that security guards had siezed plastic bottles of water they'd brought with them to the show. Not often I'd say this, but thankfully I wasn't on MDMA... the enforced drought was downright irresponsible in today's psychochemical environment.

Not that we needed chemical ecstacy... The Flaming Lips delivered with a criminally short (70 min) set which exceeded my most fervent desires. Start with the fantastic hi/lo technical array of projection screens, confetti cannons, strobe lights, balloons, dancing animals... Mix in a stellar musical performance that kicked all the right notes, and twisted over-the-top good humour. My niggling inner critic wishes for a few of the older songs (the set drew almost exclusively from the past couple of albums), but certainly can't complain that the band didn't give up the goods.

They did it without seeming for a moment like cooler-than-thou Rock pricks. The band sat visibly sidestage through the opening acts, set up their own equipment, and were refreshingly willing to express unironic joy throughout the performance... eventually rousing a typically lethargic Vancouver crowd, one weighed down by a heavy collective dose of BC Bud, to their own heights of musical transcendence.

The Flaming Lips stream their latest album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots free on the web... and if it at all catches your fancy, you absolutely must see this band live.