Ed Masley

The Republic | azcentral.com

It takes a certain breed of entertainer to lead the members of an audience on an emotional journey from the smile-inducing spectacle of “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1,” with Wayne Coyne surrounded by giant inflatables, including Santa Claus, to the existential majesty of “Do You Realize??,” which brought me to tears.

And I’m pretty sure the Flaming Lips would be the only actual entertainers in that certain breed.

Coyne is such a bizarre, enigmatic performer, giving into the silliest aspects of the task at hand, with his bag of confetti, his smoke gun and his crazy jacket with strands of multi-colored lights hanging like extra-long fringe, while gleefully spreading his message of peace and love and making the most of the moment you’re in because “you realize that everyone you know someday will die.”

There’s just so much contagious joy in his performance, as he takes his fans from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again.

Before the Lips had played a single note at their Arizona State Fair performance on Saturday, Oct. 22, Coyne took a moment to acknowledge his surroundings.

“Let it be said that going to the State Fair when I was quite young,” he said, “it was the only place that I could go and actually buy a Led Zeppelin T-shirt. Even after Led Zeppelin actually came to Oklahoma City, they didn’t have any T-shirts to buy. I would walk around the rest of my life wearing a T-shirt I actually bought at the State Fair and people would think, ‘Cool shirt, the Led Zeppelin show and I couldn’t get one.’” (For the record, I have no idea if he bought the crying Drake shirt he was wearing at the Arizona State Fair, but it was a fairly awesome look).

Then, he tossed in a reference to animal competitions and cranberry jelly before conducting his bandmates with exaggerated gestures through the intro to “Race for the Prize” in his pastel parka and shimmering pants, a dramatic yet silly sign of things to come. And when the song kicked in, the crowd down front was showered in confetti, giant balloons were unleashed, and Coyne himself shot his confetti popper while singing with total conviction of two scientists willing to risk their lives to find a cure.

Most entertainers would have held off on that kind of spectacle for later in the set, but they still had plenty to give. As Coyne announced going into an understated, emotional read on “Yoshimi” from "Race for the Prize": “Look, giant inflatable Santa Claus is here.”

And then, he made his bandmates stop “Yoshimi” to scold the crowd for not doing the karate-chop sound effect with suitable enthusiasm for a Saturday night at the State Fair in Phoenix, where they "never ever get to play," making them do it again because that moment is "an indicator of just how intense and fun and f--ked up the rest of the night is gonna be."

The good news is, the night was all those things and more, although it kept the focus squarely on mid-tempo songs.

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The set drew heavily on 1999’s “The Soft Bulletin.” In addition to “Race for the Prize,” they dusted off “What is the Light?,” “The Observer,” “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate” (which featured an epic, electrifying climax from guitarist Steven Drozd), “Waitin’ for a Superman” and “A Spoonful Weighs a Ton,” which brought the concert to a brilliant close (before the one-song encore, “Do You Realize??,” found a way to take it even higher).

The newest songs they played were from 2006’s “At War with the Mystics,” including a version of “Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung” that Coyne sent out to State Fair veteran Jimi Hendrix. And they rounded out the set with a tribute to the late great David Bowie, a stunningly faithful rendition of “Space Oddity” that featured Coyne making his way through the crowd inside a giant hamster ball.

What's great about a Flaming Lips show is the hamster ball did nothing to diminish the impact of seeing them honor Bowie's memory with such an emotional tribute. And nearly every song that followed was just as moving, starting with a stripped-down "Waitin' for a Superman."

Coyne introduced that life-affirming highlight of the set with "This song is kind of an emotional song. ... And sometimes, if we really get into it, it has a way of affecting some people in the audience and making them feel a little sad. And we don’t want that. So if you feel like it’s starting to get too sad, just fight through that s—t and scream and scream and scream."

It's that delicate balance between those emotional highlights that could make you feel a little sad and the sillier aspects they bring to the table that makes a Flaming Lips show what it is.

It was announced in the days leading up the show that the Lips are releasing an album titled “Oczy Mlody” that they promise will be more "melodically song-oriented" than the albums they ignored at Saturday’s performance, 2009's “Embryonic” and 2013's “The Terror.” And the song they shared with that announcement would have fit right in with the bittersweet highlights they played in Phoenix from “The Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.”

In the meantime, it was good to see them playing to their strengths (and their catalog’s strengths) in a set that effortlessly reaffirmed their standing as one of the greatest live experiences you could hope to witness. I laughed, I cried, I smiled more than I’ve smiled at a concert in so long I don’t remember, and I woke up with confetti on my pillow. What more could you want out of life?

Setlist

Race for the Prize

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1

The Gold in the Mountain of Our Madness

Pompeii Am Gotterdammerung

What is the Light?

The Observer

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate

Space Oddity

Waitin’ for a Superman

The W.A.N.D.

A Spoonful Weighs a Ton

Encore

Do You Realize??

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Reach the reporter at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4495. Twitter.com/EdMasley.