The Flaming Lips ego trip on blissed-out fatalism at Uptown Yoshimi anniversary show

The Flaming Lips and a “Fuck Year Kansas City” balloon at their finale. // Photo by Brock Wilbur

The Flaming Lips
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots 20th Anniversary Tour
June 23, 2024
The Uptown Theater

From the moment Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee” started playing over the speakers as the band’s entrance music, the Uptown Theater belonged fully to Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips for the next three hours. Touring in support of the 20th anniversary for their album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the band played the album in full before taking an intermission, then returning to stage to knock out greatest hits and fan favorites until long after the venue’s curfew time for a Sunday night.

I’ve seen The Flaming Lips in concert almost a dozen times since I first caught them in 2001 at Red Rocks. I’d sorta forgotten this tally, because each experience feels like a different band, but is simultaneously the uniform vibe of a well-rehearsed, well-oiled machine.

We are simply lucky to live in the same time as Wayne Coyne. No one has ever lived so clearly at the center of the Venn diagram merging David Lynch, Willy Wonka, and Winnie the Pooh. His lyrics and delivery are a joyous fatalism, blissing-out on the idea we’re all fucking doomed, but doesn’t that elevate every moment we’re alive to towering heights? Like the Ted Lasso of acid, he’s one of the few performers in the world whose nightly embrace of sincere positivity is consistently transmissible and believable. A Flaming Lips show has never not turned my entire month around, even on the occasions I’ve shown up with no intention of having the capacity to meet Wayne at his level. I am simply defenseless against Flaming energy.

I’ve seen a few interpretations of the Yoshimi album over the years. I was in a very limited test performance of Yoshimi musical for the stage in San Diego in the early tens. The idea of tackling impossible odds with equal parts energetic delight and an acceptance that you’ll probably not come out triumphant is a universal message, and for as bleak as the subject matters trend, it’s still a set of songs designed to be scream-shouted in unison.

Still, despite being a stone-cold classic, Yoshimi is probably one of the lesser choices in the catalogue to get the “we’re playing it start to finish” treatment. The Soft Bulletin tour from a few years back was an album start to finish full of high-energy, memorable singles. Yoshimi’s success as an LP mostly stems from setting and maintain a consistent, specific tone from start to finish. There’s a number of instrumentals, and some of Coyne’s least interesting lyrical work. For a band that relies so heavily on backing tracks, songs like “Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)” are not particularly interesting, and in the case of that song, a particular thud to end the album with. Is it a fun idea? Absolutely. Don’t anthems like “Do You Realize??” counterbalance the lulls? Sure thing, especially with enough lasers and inflatable giant robots. But watching Coyne insist between every song that they hurry up and start the next one, while trying to maintain the crowd’s high energy through long resets, does start to wear on you.

Luckily, the show’s post-intermission Hit’s Set kicked things into high gear, as the Lips filled the rest of the night with career highlights, an eclectic set of deeper cuts that translated much better to the live experience, and of course, the deeply personal weirdness of Coyne banter—mostly absent from the Yoshimi set as they tried to concentrate on the cohesive album experience. The second half of the evening allowed me to finally understand/connect with tracks like “The Gold in the Mountain of Our Madness” or “Pompeii am Götterdämmerung” that I’d never found particularly moving on their studio recordings. “Flowers of Neptune 6” even got an intro discussing glowbugs and Kacey Musgraves on LSD.

There was also a break where Coyne acknowledged that The Flaming Lips’ last KC show (Uptown in 2018) is famous for being the hottest show the band has ever recorded playing in their 40+ year career. As someone in attendance that night, the broken AC combined with the record-breaking heat outdoors and a mass of people did, indeed, earn this distinction. Some of us (not naming names but it was everyone in the friendgroup I brought) failed to notice how clinical-emergency level dehydrated they had become, and were maybe near blacking out before the Lips finished their third song. This show more than served as a do-over, not only for the band, but for me and my pals to sing-along to the right lyrics this time and/or not start a fight with each other.

Hearing the set all together, it was hard to shake the overwhelming sadness serving as an undercurrent, as all of Yoshimi and tracks like “Waitin’ for a Superman” jack-hammer home these lyrical sing-a-longs about how truly and sincerely fucked we’ve become. Amid some of the loudest audience participation I’ve ever heard, it was impossible for me not to shoot an embarrassing amount of water from my tear ducts as this makeshift choir from my city held what amounted to a Viking funeral for civilization. During the evening’s encore, in a moment of silence, Coyne even said a thing I’ve never heard him come close to expressing in any other show: “I know that I’m not a good singer. But I really enjoy singing. And I just wanted to thank you all for letting me do that. You’re very nice and I appreciate it.” The smallness, the simplicity, and joy oozing from one of rock’s greatest Little Guys—I’ll be thinking about that moment for the rest of my life.

As The Flaming Lips bowed and exited the stage to a recording of Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” I wound up sitting down until the theater had completely cleared. I didn’t prepare appropriately for this hot Sunday night in June, and I didn’t consider that Wayne Coyne might look directly into my soul and say “Buck up, bud.”

Easily one of the greatest concerts I’ve ever seen, or will ever see. At this point in my life, I don’t know how anything could top it. If you have the opportunity to catch them at any point on the rest of this tour, you’d be letting yourself down to skip a rare moment of actual magic in a time where care and bliss are on the endangered species list.

All photos by Brock Wilbur

SETLIST

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Fight Test
One More Robot
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 2
In the Morning of the Magicians
Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell
Are You a Hypnotist??
It’s Summertime
Do You Realize??
All We Have Is Now
Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia)

Hits Set
She Don’t Use Jelly
The Gash
Flowers of Neptune 6
Waitin’ for a Superman
What is the Light?
The Observer
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
The Gold in the Mountain of Our Madness
Pompeii am Götterdämmerung

Encore:
My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion
A Spoonful Weighs a Ton
Race for the Prize