The Flaming Lips @ Manchester

Any NOOLers from the NW region see this lot at the Apollo last night? Blimey - what a show they put on, I've read all about their legendary live antics and I certainly wasn't disappointed now that we finally managed to catch them. My wife Lorraine and myself and a couple of mates made it through the miserable Manchester rain to catch them.

Bloody amazing - these guys sure know how to put on a show and give the fans their money's worth. Full marks for that then! Singer Wayne is a bit of a fruitloop, but a lovable one nonetheless - inbetween playing loads of great tunes from their most recent albums, he went on long rambling monologues, threw confetti out at the vast capacity crowd, sang with a glove puppet of a rubber nun - which was blown up on the vast video projection screen behind the band so we could all see every little contortion on it's comical face, unleashed a huge 12 ft weather balloon filled with glitter powder that promptly burst over our heads and turned the whole gig into an enormous Birthday party celebration complete with dozens of huge coloured balloons. And then of course there were the notorious animal costumes on stage all dancing!! One guy was standing next to us in a kangaroo outfit, god only knows how he kept his cool as the throng must have made everything beyond hot!

The whole thing was euphoria from start to finish.... and they also dedicated the encore "Waiting For Superman" to recently deceased songwriter Elliot Smith - very touching indeed.

A wickedly brilliant show from a truly great band - anyone else catch them on this recent tour?

Well I wasn't really expecting that many New Order fans here to actually like the Flaming Lips too cos the only bands that really matter are New Order and JD, aren't they?

Anyway....... (holds out for some other kindred spirits to at least make a contribution to this thread)........ ;)

Not the world's biggest Lips fan, but any band that can put out the mind-bogglingly great Zaireeka is alright by me. I've only managed to play 3 of the 4 discs at one time, but it is still quite an amazing sound experience.

Great to hear that they can still kick up a racket live. :)

I saw them about 10 years ago in a small bar/club near my college. Great show.

Originally posted by Green Not the world's biggest Lips fan, but any band that can put out the mind-bogglingly great Zaireeka is alright by me. I've only managed to play 3 of the 4 discs at one time, but it is still quite an amazing sound experience.

Great to hear that they can still kick up a racket live. :)

I certainly don't know ANYBODY who has four CD players for a start! ;)

I wish they'd bring out a mixed down version just for those luddites like us!

I've heard that there is a single-mix bootleg out there, but I've never seen it (actually, I've never bothered to look).

I've got a fairly new system with CD player, plus I kept the old one as well. I brought my old portable player that I use at work for the third one, I think the idea is to get some friends over to supply all of the players.

What do people think of the Flaming Lips teaming up with the Chemical Brothers, i'm starting to like it.

i thought it was bon(g)o singing the first few times i heard it - put me right off!

When I first heard that song (The GoldenPath) I actually thought it was Echo And The Bunnymen - the tune is VERY like something they've done. Well - a cross between The Back Of Love and, come to think of it, something by U2 - (Where The Streets Have No Name, springs to mind).