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The flaming lips bubble concert5/7/2023 ![]() But then there’s also the issue of keeping those bubbles clean. Thanks to the band’s nearly two-decade use of them, Coyne has become quite an expert in space bubbles - and by the time of the Criterion show, he had a pretty good sense of how and where to procure the ones that make the most sense for an audience. But I think we could do something where it’s in the new world, where we go a little slower with a little less people, and be a little bit more aware of who’s breathing on whom and stuff like that.” That’s just too many people having to help - too many flights, too many trucks. “I don’t think we’d want to take it on a fly-by-night tour like we’re used to doing before COVID. “I think we can definitely take it to other places,” he said. And then if they did, we’d try another one and go from there.”Ī space bubble tour is possible, but Coyne said it would have to be on a very small scale. “I feel like we would put one show on sale, and see if anybody wants to go. “Do you buy the front row? Do you buy by the row? And would people even know what a row is? It’s such an unknown world,” he says. And I think the Flaming Lips audience is the perfect audience to say ‘We’ll help you do this, we can make this work,’ because they’re a very smart, caring, giving kind of an audience.”Ĭoyne said they’ll announce the next show in November, with a December date, in order to give them a few weeks to figure out how to do it. “Let’s start with a little bit of an audience, and if we have to spread it out and play multiple nights, well, great. ![]() “I thought even the amount of audience we had for the video shoot was a little scary,” Coyne admits. There’s also the question of how big the crowd should be. Next up, because the bubbles are so big, Coyne is figuring out how many people to allow inside (there’s room for three) and whether, during a longer show, there should be a break to allow for air refreshing and restroom visits. “They’re getting drunk and they’re losing their minds and before you know it, they’re grabbing onto each other and they’re screaming in each other’s faces.” ![]() “Part of the dilemma of doing loud concerts is that it gets people excited,” Coyne says. (For the record, none of the 116 attendees needed to go during this show.) Among the logistical issues the band was looking at: How to safely assemble the audience outside, without it becoming a tailgate party getting the crowd inside the balloons and blowing them up, without it becoming a super-spreader event and even figuring out how many people might need to unzip and go to the bathroom during the show. Now it feels absolutely wonderful.”Ĭoyne said the event this month was a dress rehearsal for perhaps a full concert that he’d like to do December in the same location. “I worried mostly that something embarrassing would happen or it would look like it wasn’t safe. When they need to take a bathroom break, fans simply had to raise the “I gotta go pee” sign and a venue staff will escort them after they have worn their face mask and stepped outside the bubble.“It turned out more spectacular and more positive than I could have ever thought,” Coyne told Variety. (Flaming Lips/Warner Music/Reuters)Ĭoyne said that the bubbles hold enough oxygen for three people to breathe for “over an hour and 10 minutes” before they need to be refreshed with cool air, which fans could request from attendants by raising up the “hot in here” sign. Instead of clapping, the crowd would punch the top of their bubbles because their sound was muted. Fans can also take off their face masks once they’re inside the cocoon. (Flaming Lips/Warner Music/Reuters)Īnd the band obviously made good of their plan as each bubble in this year’s concert also came with a frequency supplemental speaker, water bottle, battery-operated fan, towel, and an "I gotta go pee/hot in here" sign. The music part of it, we got that shit down.” The Flaming Lips performing inside their own space bubbles in this year's concert. ![]() That’s what we spent most of the time figuring out. Once you’re in the bubble you can do whatever the fuck you want, and that’s the beauty of it. Coyne detailed, “, the whole thing happened in 20 minutes from everybody being inside to everyone being blown up in their space bubble, and that’s the part of it that we wanted to work on. The band did a test run of the concept in a smaller concert in October that year. In an interview with Rolling Stones in December last year, Coyne said that fans would have to wait in line before they are brought inside their plastic bubbles. “We collect everybody and then we take them row by row to their bubbles,” Coyne said. Wayne Coyne is known for rolling over the audience in gigs. ![]()
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