The Flaming Lips Performed To A Crowd Of People In Bubbles, While In A Bubble, And…Wow
Audience members had to hold up signs if they needed to pee, and the band couldn't hear them clap or cheer. But still, they could dance.
The Flaming Lips has followed through on their promise of an audience-bubbled concert, after lead singer Wayne Coyne realised the band’s on-stage gimmick might just be a solution to holding COVID-safe gig.
Last October, the band — famous for performing in giant bubbles — put on a private concert where the audience was bubbled-up, recording the footage for a music video. But over the past weekend, the band played two public gigs at The Criterion in their native Oklahoma City to 100 bubbles, with up to three people allowed in each.
Each bubble featured speakers, water bottles, a fan, a towel and a sign, used to signal staff when an audience member needed to go to the bathroom, or if the bubble was getting too hot. For the bathroom, staff then escorted them to and fro, and for the heat issue, there were leaf blowers on-hand to cool things down.
Usually the venue holds around 4,000 people, but the bubble and COVID restrictions limited it to around 300 — but judging by the colourful and confetti-filled footage below, the band didn’t spare any measures. Naturally, the band had inflatable balloons that spelled out ‘Fuck you COVID-19’.
Journalist and photographer Nathan Poppe was on-hand to shoot the concert, and explained some of the concert’s measures on Twitter. He also reported that there was an in-bubble marriage proposal, though it was difficult to tell — outside of the bubble, no one can hear you scream ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
The floor is a 10 space bubble by 10 space bubble grid. Each bubble may contain one person or two or maybe three. There’s a fancy high frequency supplemental speaker inside each bubble as well as a water bottle, a fan, a towel and a “I gotta go pee/hot in here” sign. pic.twitter.com/p5r7LPNHpf
— Nathan Poppe (@NathanPoppe) January 23, 2021
As a work-around, the audience showed their appreciation after each song by hitting the top of their bubble. Watch footage from the gig below.
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