Smoking with the Flaming Lips
July 1, 2003
by Chris Orcutt

I was in LA a few weeks ago for Book Expo America, the publishing industry's yearly extravaganza where we all have to stand around, hungover, and smile for three days, telling everyone who walks by how wonderful our books are. Earning the hangovers is a blast – there's always a lot of great stuff going on after the show each night.

Matt, our publicity director, use to road manage bands. He did tours with the Butthole Surfers, Porno for Pyros, the Boredoms, and managed Nirvana's last tour. He's got a lot of good stories but you really have to pull them out of him, which I really respect. He also managed the Flaming Lips in their early years. They happened to be playing at LA's Palladium on the last Saturday of the convention, so he called Steven, their drummer, and scored us free tickets and VIP access for the show. Steven warned us that the Palladium was run by Nazis, and that we should be ready to be seriously searched.

We got to the show and were able to skip the lines to get in via our VIP status, and were thoroughly searched THREE times and had to throw out our lighters, smokes, and even my gum. The gum was no big loss but the smokes? Crippling. We got inside and into the VIP area, which wasn't anything special except that you were in the upper seats away from the masses. No free beer either. Hmmmm. We immediately blew that off and went downstairs and had a few beers while Liz Phair warmed up the crowd with an acoustic set. A few more beers and the urge for a smoke became a major problem. How can you drink beer and not smoke? And at a rock & roll show? It was around 8:15, the Lips weren't going on until 9, so we knew we wouldn't be out of there and smoking before 10:30.

What to do? We decided to wait by the side of the stage to see if Matt could snag someone he knew to get us backstage where we knew people were smoking – we could smell it. After about 10 minutes the band's current road manager walked out and Matt corralled him. He and Matt caught up for a few minutes, then said he'd see what he could do about getting us backstage for some smokes.

A few minutes later he came back with pink wristbands. Success! But the wristbands came with a price. He told us the only way we could get backstage was to be dancers onstage during the show. I was pretty lit by that time and was like, "Sure! What the hell!" But Matt was totally against the idea, saying that the Lips ask him at every show and he always refuses. I couldn't imagine why – but he really wanted a smoke too, so he agreed.

We zipped passed the security guard with our new wristbands, open the backstage door and – smoke everywhere! We found a half-full pack of Marlboros and went to town. Meanwhile, all these people are coming up to Matt and giving him big hugs, including everyone in the band. It was very cool. Matt introduced me to Wayne Coyne, the singer, who is a super nice guy. He was dressed in this trashed-down version of a Tom Wolfe white suit and looked a lot like some sort of Messiah. He asked us if we were going to be onstage with them and Matt groaned and said yes. Wayne laughed and moved on, saying hello to people and gearing himself up for the show.

Then the call came: "ALL DANCERS GET TO THIS END OF THE HALL FOR MAKEUP!" I was laughing like crazy – okay, here we go! I had NO idea what was going to happen next. Matt kind of held us both back towards the end of the line and when we got to the room where the makeup was happening, we were told we had to wait. We'd be called when they were ready for us. Matt was like "awesome!" and we split to the adjacent room where we found beer and food. We pounded a few beers and eat some bread, as neither of us had had dinner that night.

I was really curious about what we were going to have to do onstage so I went around the corner to see what was up and immediately ran into a guy dressed up as Santa coming out of the room who said to me, "You! Don't let any dancers out of the room until Wayne gives the word." I said, "Sure" and Matt nudged me and said "It worked! We don't have to do it!"

So now we were guarding the door. Immediately it opens and this beautiful woman emerges, dressed in a huge, ridiculous, super-furry rabbit outfit. I look into the room and there are like 30 people in there dressed as squirrels, gophers, Jesus, elves, more rabbits, some birds – it was absolutely the last thing I expected. I realized why Matt didn't want to do it – an hour and a half onstage in one of those outfits would take ten pounds off of anyone. This woman asks if she could get some water and I say, well, you can't leave the room but we'll get you some. So Matt goes into the other room and grabs a cooler of bottled water, and passes it out to everyone.

The guy in the Santa outfit turned out to be the stage manager and he comes back and glares at us a little for having the door open and tells the dancers, "okay, let's go!" As the music onstage starts and the dancers filed out, Matt says to me that we should go down and watch the show from the floor to get the full experience.

Have you ever heard the Flaming Lips? If you have maybe you can describe it better than I can. I read a review by someone else who said it's impossible not to imagine parades and skies filled with bright balloons as you hear their music. It's not overly weird music, rather it’s very melodic, and they perform it live really wonderfully. They all were 100% involved in the music and obviously really enjoying themselves. About a quarter of the way into the set these huge red balloons were released from the ceiling and bounced around the theater, and Wayne kept throwing huge handfuls of confetti into the crowd. The band plays in front of a huge video screen, and the music is perfectly timed with the images. The whole thing was just a hell of a lot of fun; I found myself smiling and realized I had a new favorite band. I was also pretty happy we didn't have to be onstage. The dancers starting losing steam about halfway through the show.

I though they put on a great show and Matt agreed. We didn't get a chance to say goodbye to them as we were off to the next party, but I was so happy I got a chance to see a Flaming Lips show and actually meet the band – all because I smoke! They don’t tell you about good stuff like THAT on those warning labels.

(Chris Orcutt is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine.)