Oddly enough, only 6 days ago, I had never consciously heard a Flaming Lips song. I had a general impression that they were out there and that they were cool. But I hadn't seen (nor, frankly, had I really sought) any hard evidence of this. My cousin saw them at ACL Festival a few years back, and she described how the lead singer crowd-surfed in a giant bubble. So I took her at her (very capable) word that they were worth the hype.That was 6 whole days ago. My, how times have changed.
The upstart Denton, Texas, music festival NX35 was highlighted by a FREE show at the North Texas Fairgrounds by the Flaming Lips and a couple of openers (Midlake and the White Dwarfs). Despite some untimely technical difficulties, including a total stage blackout right smack in the middle of their big intro, they were able to put on a helluva show. And it didn't matter that I had only bought my first Flaming Lips CD hours earlier. Sure, I couldn't really sing along, but I was speechless anyway:
So in case you were just as ignorant as I was, let me open your eyes. You might recognize "Do You Realize??", which is actually the official rock song of the state of Oklahoma. (Fitting, since they hail from OKC.) Listen up, and you'll see these guys are a little different:
The most striking feature of their style is actually their lyrics. A bittersweet (and mildly trippy) example:
"Do you realize / that everyone you know someday will die / And instead of saying all of your goodbyes / let them know you realize that life goes fast / It's hard to make the good things last / You realize the sun doesn't go down / It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round."
No comments:
Post a Comment