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The Flaming Lips Bring Psychedelic Spectacle to Europe Despite Early Setback
Words by The Observer
After kicking off their 2026 European summer tour with an unexpected obstacle, The Flaming Lips have quickly regained momentum, delivering a string of acclaimed performances across the continent over the past two weeks and reminding audiences why they remain one of alternative rock’s most celebrated live acts.
The tour opened with disappointment when the band’s June 15 concert at Vienna’s Gasometer was canceled after Wayne Coyne was diagnosed with pneumonia and ordered to rest. The sudden cancellation forced fans to change plans, but an outpouring of support from around the world underscored the deep connection between the Oklahoma City band and its devoted audience.
Fortunately, the setback proved temporary.
Within days, the Lips returned to the stage in Italy, launching the remainder of their European run with performances in Segrate near Milan and Bologna before continuing through Prague, Belgrade, Zagreb and Athens as part of an ambitious summer itinerary spanning more than ten countries.
On Tour In The Year 2026: show #7 June 18
Bologna, Italy: Bonsai GardensThe Stars Are So Big
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt 1
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt 2
Turn It On
The Spark That Bled
Five Stop Mother Superior Rain
The Golden Path
True Love Will Find You In The End
Every Teardrop Cried
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
Vein of Stars
Pompeii am Götterdämmerung
Fight Test
She Don’t Use Jelly
Do You Realize??ENCORE
War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)
The European tour also showcases the group’s renewed confidence following several successful North American festival appearances earlier this year. Rather than relying solely on nostalgia, the band has mixed material from across its expansive catalog, giving longtime followers and first-time concertgoers alike an experience that spans the breadth of its musical history.
The remaining European dates will carry the band through additional festivals and headline performances before they return to North America later this year. Upcoming stops include the United Kingdom and Ireland, where The Flaming Lips are scheduled to headline several outdoor concerts and major festivals throughout July.
If the past two weeks are any indication, the brief health scare that threatened to derail the tour has instead become little more than an early footnote. With Coyne back on stage and the band performing at full strength, The Flaming Lips have once again transformed concert halls and festival grounds across Europe into colorful celebrations of imagination, resilience and the enduring power of live music.
Anyone attending a future show and would like to send in pictures or show notes or art and essays insprired by the music, send your work, along with any special handling instructions to: editorobserver1@gmail.com
from the archives: July
Design by Wayne Coyne.
July 1986
Hear It Is
Studio Album
July 16, 2002
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Studio Album
July 26, 2011
The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt
EP
July 10, 2020
Dinosaurs on the Mountain
Single
July 24, 2020
You n Me Sellin’ Weed
Single
39 years ago
Live at Hung Jury in Washington, D.C. (July 26, 1987)
intro
One Million Billionth Of A Millisecond On A Sunday Morning
Prescription: Love
Just Like Before
Staring At Sound
With You / Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin cover)
27 years ago
Live at The Fillmore in San Francisco, CA (July 27, 1999)
Video: thesatellitehead
Headphone Soundcheck
Soundcheck / The Spiderbite Song
Race For The Prize
Riding to Work in the Year 2025
Thirty-Five Thousand Feet of Despair
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
She Don’t Use Jelly
Slow Nerve Action
Waitin’ For A Superman
When You Smile
The Gash
The Spark That Bled
8 years ago
Live at the Kaleidoscope Festival in London, England (July 21, 2018)
Wayne’s intro
Also Sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss cover)
Race For The Prize
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1
Fight Test
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
There Should Be Unicorns
She Don’t Use Jelly
The Castle
Space Oddity (David Bowie cover)
Are You A Hypnotist??
The W.A.N.D.
A Spoonful Weighs A Ton
Do You Realize??
Hear It Is at 40: The Incredible Birth of The Flaming Lips
By The Observer
Forty years ago, a group of young musicians from Oklahoma City entered a recording studio with little money, limited experience, and virtually no expectation that the music they were creating would one day help define one of the most inventive careers in music history. The result was Hear It Is, the first full-length album by The Flaming Lips, released in July 1986, just two years after their first self-titled EP was released in 1984.
Looking back four decades later, Hear It Is is a fascinating artifact, not because it represents The Flaming Lips at their most accomplished, but because it captures them at their most raw. Long before elaborate stage productions, giant bubbles, confetti cannons, and critically acclaimed masterpieces such as The Soft Bulletin,Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and At War With The Mystics there was a noisy, unpredictable garage-psych record made by a band still discovering who they were.
The album stands today as both a historical document and a blueprint. Buried beneath the distortion, oddball humor, and amateur production are the first signs of the curiosity, imagination, and willingness to embrace failure that would eventually make The Flaming Lips one of the most beloved and influential psychedelic rock bands in music history.
Oklahoma City Before the Myth
The story of Hear It Is begins in a place not commonly associated with experimental rock music.
In the mid-1980s, Oklahoma City was far removed from the music-industry centers of Los Angeles, New York, and London. The city’s underground scene was small, isolated, and largely disconnected from the trends shaping alternative music elsewhere.
Yet isolation became one of the band’s greatest strengths.
Without an established scene dictating what they should sound like, the early Flaming Lips developed their own strange musical language. Drawing inspiration from punk rock, garage rock, psychedelic music, and pure noise, the group crafted songs that felt simultaneously primitive and ambitious.
At the center was guitarist and vocalist Mark Coyne, whose younger brother, Wayne Coyne, was still primarily serving as guitarist. Few could have predicted that Wayne would eventually become the band’s defining voice and one of alternative music’s most recognizable frontmen.
At the time, The Flaming Lips were simply trying to make enough noise to be noticed.
A Record Built on Energy Rather Than Precision
Listening to Hear It Is today requires a shift in expectations.
This is not a polished studio production. The album is rough around every edge imaginable. Instruments bleed together. Vocals often sound buried beneath walls of fuzz. Songs drift between structured compositions and barely controlled chaos.
Yet these qualities are precisely what make the record compelling.
Rather than sounding constrained by technical limitations, the band seems energized by them. Every track feels like a group of musicians discovering ideas in real time.
The recording has the atmosphere of a crowded rehearsal space where anything might happen. There is an urgency throughout the album that later Flaming Lips records — despite their brilliance — rarely attempt to replicate.
The band was not trying to perfect a sound.
They were trying to create one.
The Influence of Psychedelia and Punk
One of the most striking aspects of Hear It Is is the way it merges seemingly incompatible influences.
The psychedelic elements are obvious. Songs stretch and wander. Effects swirl through the mix. Strange noises emerge unexpectedly from the sonic landscape.
Yet unlike many psychedelic acts of the era, The Flaming Lips were not interested in recreating the polished sounds of the late 1960s.
Their approach owed just as much to punk rock.
The album’s raw production, reckless energy, and disregard for technical perfection connect it to the DIY ethos that had reshaped underground music throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The result is a unique hybrid.
Where some bands sought transcendence through beauty, The Flaming Lips often pursued it through chaos.
That philosophy would remain central to their identity for decades.
The Humor That Would Define the Band
Even in its earliest incarnation, The Flaming Lips possessed a quality that separated them from many of their contemporaries: a sense of humor.
Throughout Hear It Is, absurdity exists alongside experimentation. The band approached music with a sense of playfulness that prevented the album from becoming overly serious or self-important.
This balance would become one of the defining characteristics of The Flaming Lips‘ career.
Whether constructing giant robots for live performances, releasing music embedded in gummy skulls, or staging concerts featuring dancing animals and costumed characters, the band has consistently treated creativity as something joyful rather than academic.
The seeds of that philosophy are already visible on Hear It Is.
The album sounds like a group of friends having fun while exploring the outer limits of what their instruments can do.
Early Glimpses of Wayne Coyne’s Vision
Although Mark Coyne remained the band’s lead vocalist during this period, listeners can hear hints of the artistic vision that Wayne Coyne would later bring to the forefront.
The fascination with altered states of consciousness, cosmic imagery, emotional vulnerability, and childlike wonder appears in embryonic form throughout the record.
Many of the themes that would later define albums like The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and Embryonic are present, albeit in much rougher form.
The difference is one of execution rather than intent.
The grand emotional statements had not yet arrived.
However, the curiosity already had.
Why Hear It Is Still Matters
Forty years later, it would be easy to dismiss Hear It Is as merely the first chapter in a much larger story.
That would be a mistake.
The album matters because it reveals something essential about The Flaming Lips‘ success.
Many legendary artists appear fully formed in retrospect. Their early recordings are often viewed as stepping stones toward inevitable greatness.
Hear It Is tells a different story.
The record documents a band learning through experimentation, failure, and persistence. It reminds listeners that innovation rarely arrives polished. More often, it emerges from trial and error, from ideas that don’t entirely work, and from artists willing to sound ridiculous in pursuit of something new.
The Flaming Lips became great not because they knew exactly where they were going.
They became great because they never stopped exploring.
The songs…
Hear It Is has never had a universally agreed-upon “best song” the way later Flaming Lips albums do, but among longtime fans and collectors of the band’s early work, a handful of tracks consistently stand out.
1. With You
For many hardcore fans, this is the crown jewel of the album.
The song opens Hear It Is with a surprisingly simple and melodic structure compared to much of the chaos surrounding it. It showcases an emotional directness that foreshadows the band’s later ability to write heartfelt songs amid psychedelic experimentation. Some Flaming Lips historians have even described it as one of the strongest songs from the band’s earliest era.
Why fans love it:
- Strong melody compared to the rest of the album
- Early glimpse of the emotional songwriting that would define later Lips records
- Recently revived in live performances, introducing it to newer fans
2. Jesus Shootin’ Heroin
This is probably the most famous song from Hear It Is.
The seven-minute epic combines dark psychedelic imagery, punk aggression, and social commentary into something unlike almost anything else in the Lips‘ catalog. In fan discussions, it is frequently cited as the album’s signature track and the song most listeners remember first. One longtime fan described it as a “7-minute sprawling epic” and the album’s most recognizable song.
Why fans love it:
- Ambitious scope for such an early Flaming Lips song
- Loud/quiet dynamics years before they became commonplace in alternative rock
- Captures the band’s strange, fearless personality
- One of the earliest examples of Wayne Coyne’s surreal lyrical style
3. Just Like Before
This track doesn’t get discussed as often as “Jesus Shootin’ Heroin,” but among dedicated fans it has become something of a cult favorite.
In one of the more active fan discussions of Hear It Is, listeners specifically singled it out as a personal favorite because of its raw punk energy and youthful recklessness.
Why fans love it:
- Fast, garage-punk energy
- Captures the Oklahoma City underground scene that birthed the band
- Feels authentic and unfiltered
4. Godzilla Flick
While not as widely known, “Godzilla Flick” has earned appreciation over the years because it contains themes Wayne Coyne would revisit throughout his career.
The song reportedly reflects thoughts about mortality after Wayne’s brother experienced a near-fatal overdose, making it one of the earliest examples of the band’s fascination with death, loss, and survival.
Why fans love it:
- Dark but thoughtful lyrics
- Early appearance of existential themes that later dominated albums like The Soft Bulletin
- Strong psychedelic atmosphere
5. Trains, Brains & Rain
This track has quietly developed a following among fans who enjoy the band’s garage-rock roots.
It’s one of the songs that best bridges the gap between the band’s punk influences and their future psychedelic direction.
Why fans love it:
- Catchier than much of the album
- Great example of the band’s early DIY sound
- Features the loose, chaotic charm that defines Hear It Is
Why Fans Still Return to Hear It Is
What’s interesting is that most fans don’t love Hear It Is because it’s polished. They love it because it’s messy.
The album captures a version of The Flaming Lips before they became psychedelic icons. Wayne Coyne had only recently taken over lead vocals, the production budget was tiny, and the band was still figuring out what kind of music they wanted to make. The result is a noisy, unpredictable record that feels more like a garage full of ideas than a finished artistic statement.
If you asked longtime Flaming Lips fans to rank the songs most associated with Hear It Is, the list would probably look something like:
- With You
- Jesus Shootin’ Heroin
- Just Like Before
- Godzilla Flick
- Trains, Brains & Rain
Of those, “With You” and “Jesus Shootin’ Heroin” are generally regarded as the album’s essential tracks, the songs that best demonstrate both where The Flaming Lips started and where they were eventually headed.
The Legacy of a Debut
Today, The Flaming Lips are widely recognized as one of the most adventurous bands of the past four decades. Their catalog spans psychedelic rock, experimental noise, orchestral pop, electronic music, and countless sounds that resist easy categorization. Their collaborations with other artists are truly legendary.
Yet every journey has a starting point.
For The Flaming Lips, that starting point was Hear It Is.
The album lacks the emotional sophistication of The Soft Bulletin. It lacks the conceptual ambition of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. It lacks the sonic depth of Embryonic.
What it possesses instead is possibility.
Listening to the record in 2026 is like opening a time capsule from a moment before anyone, not the critics, not the audience, and perhaps not even the band themselves, understood what The Flaming Lips would become.
Within its walls of distortion and garage-rock chaos lies the first spark of one of alternative music’s most unlikely success stories.
Forty years after its release, Hear It Is remains more than a debut album.
It is the sound of a band beginning a journey that is still unfolding.
The Flaming Lips With Lightning Bolt: Chaos, Collaboration, and the Sound of a Band Testing Its Limits
By The Observer
In the vast and often bewildering catalog of The Flaming Lips, few releases embody the group’s fearless experimental spirit more completely than The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt, the 2011 collaborative EP with Lightning Bolt. Released on July 26, 2011, during one of the most prolific and unconventional periods in the Lips’ history, the four-song, 22-minute EP stands as a fascinating document of two boundary-pushing bands colliding headfirst into one another.
For casual Flaming Lips fans, the EP can be a difficult listen. There are no obvious hooks, no soaring choruses, and very little of the emotional warmth that characterized classics such as The Soft Bulletin or Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Instead, the record is an assault of distortion, tribal drumming, feedback, space imagery, and psychedelic delirium.
Yet for listeners interested in understanding the band’s evolution, it is one of the most revealing releases of the entire 2011-2013 era.
The Context: The Flaming Lips‘ Wildest Year
To appreciate the Lightning Bolt EP, it helps to understand where the Flaming Lips were in 2011.
Following the critical success of Embryonic, Wayne Coyne and company seemed determined to push experimentation as far as possible. Rather than immediately following up with a conventional studio album, the band spent much of 2011 creating limited-edition releases, bizarre physical formats, and collaborations with seemingly anyone willing to join them. During the same period they released projects with Neon Indian, Prefuse 73, Yoko Ono, and many others while simultaneously issuing songs inside gummy fetuses, gummy skulls, and even a human skull containing a hard drive.
The collaborative EPs became laboratories where The Flaming Lips could experiment without the expectations attached to a major album release. The Lightning Bolt collaboration may have been the most extreme of all.
Why Lightning Bolt?
Lightning Bolt had spent the previous decade becoming one of underground music’s most respected noise-rock acts. The duo, consisting of bassist Brian Gibson and drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale, built a reputation through overwhelming live performances that blurred the lines between punk, noise, metal, free improvisation, and performance art.
On paper, the pairing made sense.
Both bands were outsiders who had achieved cult status through relentless experimentation. Both embraced volume, distortion, and sensory overload. Both viewed psychedelic music not as nostalgia but as a means of expanding perception.
The difference was emotional intent.
The Flaming Lips traditionally used chaos as a vehicle for wonder, beauty, and transcendence. Lightning Bolt often used chaos as an end in itself, a celebration of raw energy and physical intensity.
The EP captures those philosophies meeting somewhere in the middle.
A Unique Structural Concept
One of the most interesting aspects of the release is its symmetry.
The first two tracks are credited to “The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt.”
The second two are credited to “Lightning Bolt with The Flaming Lips.”
This may appear to be a simple naming convention, but it actually reflects the project’s central idea. Rather than one artist serving as the host and the other as a guest, the EP effectively becomes two mini-EPs.
Side one sounds like The Flaming Lips pushing themselves toward Lightning Bolt’s abrasive noise-rock territory.
Side two sounds like Lightning Bolt absorbing elements of the Lips’ psychedelic weirdness.
The distinction emphasizes collaboration as a two-way exchange rather than a hierarchy. Critics noted that the project deliberately blurred the line between who was influencing whom.
Into the music:
“I’m Working at NASA on Acid”
The opening track immediately establishes the EP’s surreal tone.
Its title alone sounds like a classic Wayne Coyne phrase, combining space exploration, altered consciousness, and absurd humor. The song unfolds as a noisy psychedelic jam that feels less like a structured composition and more like an environment.
The drumming is relentless.
The bass grinds and mutates.
Coyne’s vocals drift through the mix like radio transmissions from another dimension.
What makes the track compelling is its refusal to settle into a groove. Just when listeners begin to orient themselves, another layer of noise arrives to destabilize everything.
The song feels less like a trip through space than a malfunctioning spacecraft hurtling through an acid-induced hallucination.
“I Wanna Get High But I Don’t Want Brain Damage”
This became the EP’s signature song and the only track to receive substantial attention outside hardcore fan circles. A disturbing video centered around Wayne Coyne’s mouth accompanied the release, perfectly matching the song’s unsettling atmosphere.
The title encapsulates one of The Flaming Lips‘ recurring themes: the pursuit of transcendence mixed with anxiety about the consequences.
Throughout their career, the Lips have explored altered states of consciousness. But unlike many psychedelic bands, they often acknowledge fear, mortality, and uncertainty alongside wonder.
The song’s overwhelming wall of sound turns what could have been a humorous title into something strangely unsettling.
The listener isn’t floating.
They’re being engulfed.
“NASA’s Final Acid Bath”
If the first half belongs primarily to The Flaming Lips, this track shifts the center of gravity toward Lightning Bolt.
The song is louder, harsher, and more aggressive. Critics and fans frequently cite it as the point where Lightning Bolt’s identity becomes dominant.
The title continues the EP’s recurring NASA-and-acid motif, creating the impression of a loose conceptual thread running through the record. Space travel becomes a metaphor for psychedelic exploration, while the language of scientific achievement collides with complete sensory breakdown.
The result is both exhilarating and exhausting.
“I Want to Get Damaged But I Won’t Say Hi”
The EP closes with its strangest title and arguably its most unpredictable composition.
The track feels like the two bands finally dissolving into a single entity. Rather than sounding distinctly like either group, it becomes a noisy hybrid.
The structure constantly shifts.
Textures emerge and disappear.
Nothing remains stable long enough to become familiar.
It serves as an appropriate ending because it leaves listeners uncertain whether they have heard a collaboration, a confrontation, or a complete sonic meltdown.
The Shadow of Embryonic
One reason the EP remains significant is how clearly it points toward the next phase of The Flaming Lips‘ career.
Many fans identify Embryonic as the moment the band embraced a darker, heavier, and more experimental aesthetic. The Lightning Bolt EP pushes that tendency even further.
In hindsight, it can feel like a bridge between Embryonic and The Terror.
While The Terror would eventually transform anxiety and darkness into a carefully crafted artistic statement, the Lightning Bolt collaboration captures the band in a more raw and exploratory state.
It is experimentation without a safety net.
A sketchbook rather than a finished painting.
Why the EP Divides Fans
The record has always generated mixed reactions. Some listeners praise its fearlessness and intensity, while others find it inaccessible and self-indulgent. Reviews upon release reflected that division.
The challenge is that the EP intentionally avoids many of the qualities that make The Flaming Lips beloved.
There is little melody.
There are few emotional breakthroughs.
The songs rarely resolve.
Listeners searching for the uplifting catharsis of “Do You Realize??” will likely be disappointed.
However, listeners interested in sonic exploration often discover something rewarding beneath the chaos. The EP demonstrates what happens when musicians prioritize curiosity over accessibility.
Legacy and Reappraisal
Fifteen years later, the Lightning Bolt collaboration occupies an unusual place in The Flaming Lips discography.
It is neither a major album nor a forgotten novelty.
Instead, it functions as a snapshot of one of the band’s most adventurous periods. The project helped define a year in which the Lips seemed determined to dismantle every expectation surrounding what a rock band could release, how music could be distributed, and who they could collaborate with.
For longtime fans, the EP has become increasingly interesting as the years pass. Removed from the constant flood of 2011 releases, it can now be heard as part of a larger artistic statement, one in which The Flaming Lips embraced risk, confusion, and experimentation with almost reckless enthusiasm.
The Flaming Lips with Lightning Bolt is not essential because it contains the band’s best songs.
It is essential because it reveals the band at one of its most fearless moments.
The EP captures the band refusing to repeat themselves, refusing to chase commercial success, and refusing to make listening easy. By joining forces with Lightning Bolt, they created a work that sounds less like a collaboration and more like two artistic universes crashing together in real time.
It is messy.
It is abrasive.
It is frequently overwhelming.
And that is precisely why it remains one of the most fascinating artifacts from The Flaming Lips‘ legendary 2011 experimental era.
Confirmed dates for 2026
March 28 – Teton Village, Wyoming: Rendezvous Music Festival
April 18 – Mexico City, Mexico: Velódromo Olímpico
May 3 – El Paso, Texas: Sol Summit
May 7 – Houston, Texas: White Oak Music Hall
May 8 – Austin, Texas: Austin Psych Fest
May 30 – Denver, Colorado: Outside Days festival
June 15 – Vienna, Austria: Gasometer CANCELED: DUE TO ILLNESS
June 18 – Bologna, Italy: Bonsai Gardens
June 20 – Prague, Czechia: At the Letňany Airport (other notables include Nick Cave, Sting, Slowdive)
June 22 – Belgrade, Serbia: Luka Beograd
June 23 – Zagreb, Croatia: Inmuic Festival (other notables include Gorillaz, Idles, Jack White)
June 25 – Athens, Greece: Release Athens Festival – SOLD OUT
July 16 – Galway, Ireland: Galway International Arts Festival (with Mercury Rev) – SOLD OUT
July 18 – Margate, England: Dreamland (co-headline with The Beta Band)
July 19 – Nottingham, England: The Nottingham Splendour Festival
July 21 – Wolverhampton, England: Civic Hall
July 23 – Halifax, England: The Piece Hall (co-headline with The Beta Band)
July 25 – London, England: Somerset House Summer Series
July 26 – Suffolk, England: Latitude Festival (other notables include David Byrne, Lewis Capaldi)
July 27 – Glasgow, Scotland: Summer Nights at The Bandstand
July 29 – Cardiff, Wales: Depot
August 22-23 – Jakarta, Indonesia: LALALA Fest
September 25 – Louisville, Kentucky: Bourbon & Beyond Festival
2026 World Fan Project
What would the world be like without The Flaming Lips?
Have you ever thought “what would this world be like, how would the universe sound, or how would we connect with each other without The Flaming Lips?“
Although hard to ponder, we thought what if we posed this question to fans all over the world and documented their responses for The Observer’s first large world-wide fan project.
Whether you have written in before or not, participated in our fan interviews or not, everyone is welcome to offer their insight through words, art, essay, pictures or anything creative to fulfil a community perspective with this question:
What would the world be like without The Flaming Lips?
There is no hard deadline with this project, with an estimated publish date say… later this year in late summer or fall. We’ll put out a last call sometime around then, and then work to catalog and design the responses into one massive Observer publication.
The goal is to get fans thinking, to search themselves and express their thoughts and or gratitude into one large collection.
To submit, simply contact us at editorobserver1@gmail.com.
Please attach the name you would like to use, along with your submission and any special instructions you have for your content. Please only submit content that you own and is yours to publish.
WATCH:
Daniel Huffman of New Fumes on ‘Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends’, “Girl, You’re So Weird” & blood vinyl!
Richard English on Mark Coyne leaving The Flaming Lips in 1985 & Wayne Coyne becoming the frontman
Editor’s Message
Welcome to Issue 19
We were all thankful to hear the update Wayne provided to us via Instagram about his positive treatment for pneumonia.
It’s hard for creative minds to follow orders to stay still and rest, and I’m sure for Wayne this was no different. But after watching their performances online this past week, along with the incredible pictures by Blake, we got a sense that the tour left many in the audience, and on stage, with full hearts and smiles on their faces.
***
Some performances just stay with you. For me the performance of With You in Albuquerque New Mexico in May 2024 is one of these performances. The band sound checked the song earlier that day. When we were standing in line hours before the doors opened, a security guard opened the double door to the auditorium and I could see Wayne standing in the empty auditorium looking back at the stage while they performed With You. I have kept this image in my mind ever since, as a photojournalist I would have loved to had captuerd this moment, yet, grateful to have witnessed it.
Now that Here It Is is 40-years-old, I have always loved this song, there is an explosive power to this music, and in this song I can feel this power. I can remember then they played the song I left my phone in my pocket, closed my eyes and felt the music. I close my eyes at a lot of Lips shows, mostly because I want this music to be core memories within me. I really can not describe it, the things I feel and see in these moments only exist here, at no other time in my life except when I stand before this band. In my 46 years on this Earth, music, and pictures have been the way I understand the universe, and having this music be my soundtrack, leaves me incredibly grateful to each and every person in this group, and why I always say that every show with The Flaming Lips, is a gift…
***
Anyone wanting to send in words, art, pictures, essays, or images of tattoos inspired by the music, please feel welcome too. We at The Observer, with thousands of journalists working in bureaus around the world, are always looking for submissions for this newsletter.
***
Please think about referring this newsletter to your friends, or drop the link into your groups or whatever. We all need breaks from social media, and this newsletter was designed for fans who maybe are not on social media. The mission of this newsletter is to celebrate the fans and the music of The Flaming Lips. This is a safe space for those wanting to share stories of their connections to the music and the band.
***
Parting shot:
Founded January 1 2025
All are welcome here.
This newsletter was created by fans, for fans, and is in no way affiliated with The Flaming Lips or their management.
By signing up you will only receive this monthly newsletter and no other promotions or solicitations.
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Thank you for being you,
– Woody
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