Flaming Lips played & curated ATP NY (pics & setlist), appearing on the Colbert Report Wednesday

photos by Ryan Muir

DOWNLOAD: The Flaming Lips – Silver Trembling Hands (MP3)

For those complaining that the Flaming Lips didn’t play any old songs, know this: ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ was released in 1939 – benjamin redder

“Those confetti-spewing, peace-loving, Bush-hating hippie weirdos the Flaming Lips are set to tussle with Stephen Colbert on a new episode of “The Colbert Report” airing this Wednesday, according to the TV show’s official site. If previous musical guest appearances are any indication, the Lips will perform a song from their new album, Embryonic (due October 13 on Warner Bros.), and take part in a delightfully antagonistic chat with the host.” [P4K]

The Flaming Lips played songs off that new album during their festival-closing set at ATP on Sunday night (9/13). One of them is available for free download above.

Employing many of their old, but still great, tricks, The Flaming Lips were the perfect Kutscher’s headliner (and curator of Sunday’s lineup). It was big, yet intimate. Their set was sensory overload with loud music, psychedelic projections, lights, smoke, confetti, balloons, streamers, lasers (that the band gave out to the audience), fans in costumes, people in costume on stage (fully dressed yetis on the left, scantily clad yetis on the right), stage hands in orange jumpsuits, lots of screaming people, Wayne in his gray suit with megaphone, and other various instruments. That includes an old style trumpet that he played a funeral march on, and the gong. Their was Obama cheering and sing-a-longs. There was no hand puppet, War Pigs or Hulk hands. There was talk of weed and the smell of it in the air.

The show started with a projection of a woman with her legs spread – a spinning hypnotic circle covered her most private of areas which got closer and closer and closer until all of a sudden the 3 non-Wayne band members made their grand entrance right through it (through a flap in the video screen at the back of the stage actually). Wayne then immediately kicked things off in the giant inflatable bubble.

They went on around 11:45 on Sunday night. I was outside of Kutscher’s and on my way home in a car by 1:40 AM (then after some minor pit stops, I was home in Brooklyn around 4:30 Monday morning).

Wayne took time more than once throughout their set to repeatedly thank all the bands who played the festival including the Boredoms who played their killer Boadrum 9 set the same day. As others have pointed out, Yoshimi of the Boredoms (who I can’t confirm was actually in the room watching) was there, and the Lips played “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots” as part of their set.

“The lyrics of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots concern a diverse array of subject matter, mostly deeply melancholy ponderings about love, mortality, artificial emotion, pacifism, and deception, while telling the story of Yoshimi’s battle. The title character is believed to be an allusion to Boredoms/OOIOO member Yoshimi P-We, who also performs on the album. Some listeners consider Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots to be a concept album; however, the story is debated, as it is only directly apparent in the first four tracks. However, despite the story-type title and science fiction themes of the album, the Flaming Lips frontman, Wayne Coyne, has made it clear that the album is not intended to be a concept album” [Wiki]

That kind of worked out that a Flaming Lips-curated NY ATP happened right around the time of 9/9/9 (when the Boredoms would want be be back in NY anyway to do their follow up show to 8/8/8 and 7/7/7).

Wayne could also be seen walking around and enjoying the upstate NY festival throughout the weekend. One great moment happened earlier on Sunday as Deerhoof drummer Greg Saunier took time out from their set to thank everyone. As he thanked the Lips for inviting them, he turned his head to the side of the stage to direct his comment right at Wayne, who was in fact standing there watching.

No, there weren’t old songs. Yes, they did play ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. BBG’s take on it, and the rest of the pictures from the weekend are coming soon (though Day One are already HERE). An interview we did with Wayne (with Ryan Muir-taken portraits) is coming soon too. The rest of the Flaming Lips pics and the setlist, below….

No Age‘s Husker Du set with Bob Mould happened right before The Flaming Lips, but on the other stage.

Flaming Lips ATP WRITTEN setlist – Sept 13, 2009
1) Intro
2) Race For The Prize
3) Silver Trembling Hands
4) Fight Test
5) Bad Days
6) Enthusiasm
7) HEX
8) Vein of Stars
9) Yoshimi
10) Pompeii
11) The W.A.N.D.
12) Jelly
13) Realize???

##?) They closed with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”