Sunday, April 23, 2000
Flaming Lips just kiss off rock
By Chris Varias
Enquirer contributor
It either rocks, or it doesn't. The Flaming Lips, the longstanding psychedelic crew from Oklahoma City, used to rock not so long ago. But with the dawning of 1999's The Soft Bulletin came a new way of doing business.
Gone are the band's grungier elements, replaced by songs and soundscapes described as “lush” and “sweeping” and even “gorgeous” by the bedazzled rock-critic masses.
The concerts too have switched from rock fests to sonic explorations, or whatever lead singer Wayne Coyne is calling them these days. Their Saturday-night show at Bogart's was another lush and sweeping and gorgeous affair — a little better than last year's stop in town, but the new stuff is still a bore and the band still needs to mix in a live drummer.
The slight improvement was one of material, not execution. Last year's tour was a big package deal with three other acts on the bill, so the Lips could only do an abbreviated set, one that concentrated on the new album. Saturday the focus was still the new one, but they did 80 minutes and had time for a few older songs.
On the merchandise table were free postcards with a statement by Mr. Coyne printed on one side concerning the band's new direction. “In a strange reversal of musical universes, the more indulgent and sonically perverse we got, the more commercial we sounded,” he writes.
Indulgent? You bet — as pompous and overstated as the video montage of Leonard Bernstein conducting nuclear explosions that flickered on a screen behind the band.
Sonically perverse? Not really — only in the sense that they don't play rock music any more. The night's first song, “Race for the Prize,” was the only Soft Bulletin cut with any sort of forward motion. They're sonically perverse only if The Dark Side of the Moon is sonically perverse. This is nothing more than headphone music for those searching for The Big Message.
The night's two best tunes were seven years old, the fluke hit “She Don't Use Jelly” and “Slow Nerve Action.” Both featured the heavy, loose-limbed drumming of Steven Drozd. Unfortunately Mr. Drozd played guitar on those songs at the show — his drum playing was prerecorded. The only live percussion was a gong Mr. Coyne occasionally stuck.
Too many times during the show that gong should have been used in a Chuck Barris sort of manner.
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