The Flaming Lips hit Philly for a sold-out show on Saturday, March 4 at The Fillmore. If you didn’t already check out our interview with frontman Wayne Coyne from earlier this week, stop reading and go check that out right now! All caught up? Good, let’s continue.
The show opened with a set from experimental rap group, ‘Clipping’, who consists of rapper Daveed Diggs and producers William Hutson and Jonathan Snipes. Many of you might know Diggs as a Tony Award winner for his roles as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the Broadway smash hit ‘Hamilton’.
The crowd didn’t seem to know exactly what to make of Clipping, so the reaction was somewhat mixed, but overall people seemed to enjoy their set and at the conclusion the jam packed venue was ready for the main event.
With The Fillmore packed to the gills with fans of the Flaming Lips, Wayne Coyne and company took the stage to a roar of cheers, opening with ‘Race For The Prize’. With their atypical party/ticker-tape-parade atmosphere that in unlike anything else we see in music today, The Flaming Lips took fans on a magical journey though sight and sound during their thirteen song set.
The stage, fronted by a hanging curtain of dancing LED lights, with guest appearances from inflatable characters, was as much a part of the show as the music.
As Coyne he mentioned in our interview, the energy and love that the band gave to the sold-out crowd was reciprocated ten-fold. One of our favorite moments of the show came half way through their set when they performed a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, a beautiful ode to the late, great Ziggy Stardust. They closed out their set with ‘A Spoonful Weighs a Ton’.
After a raucous round of cheering and chanting the the band’s name, The Flaming Lips returned to the stage for a two song encore of ‘Waitin’ For a Superman’ and ‘Do You Realize??’. It was a fantastic night of music, and one that we, and the rest of those in attendance, won’t soon forget.
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[Photo credit: Rick Pettine]
[Article by David Miller]
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