As the crew cleared away the last remnants of the Babybird equipment,
the lips and all their usual crew began to appear in the background. It
never ceases to impress me when I see them bringing on their own
equipment, setting up their own gear. Never the eagerly aloof stars,
you see. Having said that, I doubt very much if anyone else could
actually set up their stuff the way it needs to be.......
Anyway, what they actually brought on made me wonder if being at the
front was an entirely good idea. Ron wheeled on three amps in a row,
Wayne had his usual two high stack of fender amps, and Mike had a HUGE
set of bass cabs. Hmmmnnn, ever get the feeling you need earplugs????
There were also a few of their own lights - not quite the fairy lights
and spinning bullseyes they're renowned for back in the US but it was
still cool to see them bring a bit of that Flaming Lips own brand stage
accessories feel to the Reading platform. Hopefully next year they'll
be back over here with the bubble machine and confetti...?
After ten minutes of fiddling with the sound, but not really properly
soundchecking, the stage manager obviously wants to get things moving.
Wayne asks Matt if he's ready at the sound desk, and twenty seconds
later we're away with an incredibly noisy and loud `Lightning Stikes
The Postman'. It's clear straight away that tonight the band is going
to play through bad sound with a LOT of noise and guitar pyrotechnics.
Matt presumably wrestled with the desk throughout the set but, with a
sound as precise as the Lips have, the NME tent is probably the kind of
venue he depsises. Anyway, it doesn't matter because I can hear all the
instruments pretty well and they're moving so much air that it's a
pretty damn good textured wall of sound anyway. And let's face it - if
the Lips create a wall of sound, then it's about the best thing that
you can be aurally assaulted by....
To be honest, this gig is probably the best I've seen the Lips. It was
musically not perfect - with little slips, the bad sound and the odd
technical glitch - but it was amazing to watch four people push each
other in what was clearly an adlib set. Throughout the night, the band
would take it in turns to make the breaks, start the songs and they
would only decide which song to play next as the last finished.
So, anyway, Lightning Strikes To Postman finished in a squall of noise
- with Ron smacking his guitar to create all sorts of havoc with our
ears. Wayne and Steven have a hurried conversation and this results in
a lot of gesticulation in Ron's direction. A nod from Mike confirms the
decision, and there is a tiny moment of quiet as Wayne moves back to
the mic to thank the audience (as always). Then Ron strikes into the
diseased sounding effects that mark the start of Unconsciously
Screamin'. At about the point where Steven is supposed to beat the
drums into submission as a cue for everyone else to come in, he changes
his mind and shouts at Wayne. Ron looks up to see what's going on and
the change of Plan becomes clear so he makes a few noises to lead into
Wayne's intro riff to Mountainside. And they're off. It lasts about
20 minutes with not the one middle soundwash but two and a half....
Ron would just play this little high pitched riff over and over as Mike
tried to shake the tent to the ground and Wayne just made all sorts of
really fucked up grinding and crashing noises. Steven augmented the
somehow beautiful tension with delicate cymbal work in between fixing
his crash (maybe actually one of the reasons the song went on so long
but I'd swear the others hadn't noticed what he was doing - they were
far too busy concentrating on their own thing...) Then we got to see
the who's going to break show. Wayne nods at Steven who points at Ron.
Ron finally looks up, Wayne nods at him, he nods at Steven, who points
back at Ron. Ron now nods at Wayne, who nods back more meaningfully.
Ron finally seems to agree and proceeds to drag it out a bit longer
until the whole band is looking at him expectantly when he suddenly
moves back to his squalling main riff. They all just catch his move,
and then he breaks it back down. This false start over, they all seem
to know when to go together this time and it's a glorious crescendo.
Once again, it finishes with guitar shaking and punching exploding
noises.
It's a quick move into Unconsciously Screamin' for real this time and
it's as riotous as ever - Ron's guitar seemed to be not quite working
properly, but they carried it off anyway.
It was then great to see a festival crowd experience Waterbug in all
it's glory - with the usual explanation of the song from Wayne - and
they seemed pretty much unfazed by the unusual approach to playing a
song. Ron started pulling plugs out in his rack and stamping on all
sorts of pedals, as his guitar continued to play up, but it still
sounded pretty much okay to these ears (apparently there was a bit of
a problem with the PA which mean that nearer the back Ron's guitar was
a bit quiet. I guess those amateurs at the Reading Festival really
didn't know what they were dealing with...)
Wayne took the opportunity to thank the crowd for turning up to see
the set, in the face of the worst scheduling in the universe (Sonic
Youth were playing over on the main stage and the AC Acoustics on the
smaller Dr Martens stage all at the same time as the Lips... who works
out the damn running order at these things??) before telling us about
the philosophy behind Bad Days, which was as uplifting as it ever has
been.
It's about now that I get confused about the running order... I'm
pretty sure that it was When You Smile next but it might not have been.
Anyway, I'll work on that presumption and it was definitely fantastic
whatever. Once again, the band were pushing each other fairly hard and
the song was fairly different to the way they played it on the last
tour. Now, at the end of this (if I have the order right) they struck
staright into something I've not heard them do before. I thought it
might be a really odd version of Kim's Watermelon Gun for a moment, but
it certainly wasn't. It was in fact Lucifer Sam (Pink Floyd) but it sounded weird
cos Michael was playing the wrong bass line - due to being not quite with it....
Anyway, this finsihed to rapturous applause and then Wayne struck up a
very quiet version of She Don't Use Jelly - no drums, as Steven added
some really cool organ sounds instead and the noisy beginning/chorus
riff was absent. It was a pretty cool way to circumvent the old
millstone effect of having the one really well known song that everyone
wants to hear just like the record is.
After that had sighed to an end, Wayne once again thanked the crowd for
missing the other great bands to come and see the Lips, before saying
goodbye because they were about to play the last song - which Steven
had decided in the background would be Hit Me Like You Did The First
Time. The old favourite rocked out well and as usual had morphed into
something quite different to the last time I saw them play it. It also
lasted about twice as long as usual - they really dragged it out in an
exceptionally cool way - but as it screamed to an end the set wasn't
over. The grins on their faces indicated that they quite clearly had
not had enough, so they launched straight into an immediately powerful
Exploration Of The Fetus With Needles. It didn't have it's usual build
up from almost silence but instead was all throbbing and loud before
they hit the noisy bit - which became an enormous malestrom of sound
that threatened to cause an out of body experience. Considering that
this was already long past their allotted time, they dragged it out so
long (with the breaks with odd whale call noises running through
lasting for a beautiful eternity) that I felt sure the power would be
cut off - the stage manager had been indicating that the end was nigh
before Hit Me had begun. Judging by the reaction (cries of more were
inevitably unheeded, with one more band still to come - surely, next
time they must headline a day?) when they finished and left the stage
waving furiously as ever, any attempt to create an enforced end to the
magic of The Flaming Lips on this night would have caused a near riot.
|
|
