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It’s highly unlikely that anyone who witnessed The Flaming Lips in action last night will forget it in haste- there was a carnival atmosphere in the air at the Guildhall throughout proceedings. Perhaps it was helped by the presence of support act Stardeath and White Dwarf, fronted by Mark Coyne, nephew of Lips leader Wayne. From their sound it was clear that they had been heavily influenced by leafing through the record collection of the ringmaster of the whole show. Making mental notes to myself throughout their set in a bid to describe their sound the best I could do was a kind of ‘psychedelic thrash’ along the lines of Black Sabbath/Led Zeppelin meeting Pink Floyd/Rush.

Yet there was no self imposed limit on which genre they could be, instead Mark and friends seemed to go through several different styles in the space of a song, no mean feat in itself, almost as spectacular as their strobe and smoke heavy stage presence, leading to a Spinal Tap moment a few songs in as a fire alarm went off, forcing the rather un rock and roll spectacle of a hurried evacuation from the venue after initially thinking the steward who ran on was part of the act. And the odd thing is that could have been entirely plausible as a part of the Flaming Lips rock circus. After what seemed an overlong wait we were ushered back in and the band finished its set, which featured a faithful rendition of Black Sabbath’s ‘Sweet Leaf’ and a radically different take on Madonna’s ‘Borderline’. Clearly they’ve been raiding their parents’ record collections on this evidence but it just goes to show that versatility pays……..

But after an interval it was time for the real stars of the show, and they didn’t disappoint. A sea of balloons descended into the crowd as the band, followed by their charismatic front-man in ‘embryonic’ form (wrapped in what looked like latex, which then inflated to transform into his now trademark giant ball), before he proceeded to go crowd surfing which made for quite a spectacle from the circle seats I can safely tell you. The majority of the set drew from new album ‘Embryonic’ which sounded to me as if they had been influenced by a selection of Krautrock groups- anyone interested should seek out the likes of Can and Neu!

Though there was a selection of old favourites- ‘Yoshimi’, Fight Test’, ‘The WAND’ and an encore of ‘Do You Realise?’ being my personal highlights. It was hard to shake off the feeling that there was a slightly theatrical element to their stage show but it had the effect of making each new song sound like a different act within a morality play, helped along by Wayne’s pleas for peace and love during an intermission owing to discomfort stemming from the strobe lights among the crowd. It will certainly live long in my mind- the music, the atmosphere, the incidents, but all in all a great night with plenty of entertainment value courtesy of a determinedly ‘cult’ group who deserve to take plaudits for showmanship as well as musical ability.

The Flaming Lips at Portsmouth Guildhall, 13th November 2009