Having never been to a Flaming Lips gig before I knew only the legends, the stories and the myths about the events that would occur. The show was opened by a town crier, the band were joined on stage by a crowd of Father Christmases and aliens in miniskirts (both crowds armed with torches) and Wayne himself appeared in a giant hamsterball which he immediately manoeuvered onto the screaming crowd in front of the stage as the first notes of Race For The Prize played. There were hundreds of balloons, streamer cannons and confetti explosions.

Yeah, it was pretty good.

We were upstairs, so a little removed from the mayhem (though plenty of enormous balloons headed our way), but we still had a great time. The level of enthusiasm and pure joy in the room was palpable; those guys certainly know how to put on a good show and the crowd knew how to respond. They played songs almost exclusively from the most recent three albums (fine by me as those are the ones that I own), deviating only for a rousing version of She Don’t Use Jelly and their finale which was, bizarrely, Bohemian Rhapsody. If I was doing one of those lists of ten bands to see before you die then The Flaming Lips would definitely be in it (but I’m not doing one of those lists).

Using the mega zoom on my camera I managed to take a reasonable photo of Wayne (and lots of blurred ones) before the security guy told me to put it away:

Oh, also. Hello, I’m back. The last few months have been very busy but I’ve come to realise that things aren’t going to get any less busy for a while so I can’t use it as an excuse not to write anything here.