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1) 5 April 1983 - The Blue Note, Norman, OK
The Flaming Lips performed their first-ever live show. Michael still hadn't got to grips with the idea of facing the audience, but Wayne had no problems with a bit of writhing around on the floor as he played his guitar. The band returned to the venue a number of times in the next few months, setting a trend that took hold in many of the venues they were to visit over the coming years.
2) 17 October 1990 - Rome 90, Norman, OK
The band performed a show incendiary in terms of both sound and physical fact. Filling a cymbal with alcohol, setting fire to it and having George hit it with a drumstick was not the brightest idea ever. After flying gobs of burning fluid had been scattered about the place and chaos had started to set in, Wayne's brother had the presence of mind to find a fire extinguisher. As the light rack plunged earthwards and flames took hold in the wrong places, he proceeded to douse the stage, PA, and lights. Amazingly, he ended up having to do something similar at the 1990 Christmas show, whereupon Wayne declared, "I think I'd rather die of being burned than breathe that shit." On both occasions, the other 300 people in the building were not inclined to agree. Possibly overwhelmed with gratitude for her continued existence, on the very night of the Rome '90 show the A&R rep from Warners, Roberta Petersen, decided to sign the band.
3) 30 June 1996 - Roskilde Festival, Denmark
Performing as some kind of festival coda, following the headlining Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Flaming Lips took to the stage to see most of the 70,000 crowd walking away to their tents. Ronald Jones engaged several frighteningly complicated effects on his guitar, and struck into the opening synthesiser chords of the Who's 'Baba O'Reilly'. A large array of lights blazed into the night as the rest of the band kicked in, with Steven beating the living daylights out of his drum kit, and several thousand people turned round and came straight back to the stage. This show was perhaps a more fitting end to Ronald Jones's involvement in the band than the somewhat unhinged final show that followed at the Reading Festival 8 weeks later.
4) 16 May 1998 - The Forum, London, UK
Taking the Boombox Experiment outside of the US for the first time, the band recruited an array of alternative music luminaries to control the boomboxes on stage in a large venue. The likes of Kevin Shields, Sonic Boom, Tim Gane, and Martin Carr were just some of the names under Wayne and Steven's direction. With a multiple PA system around the venue shaking the very foundations during the performance, and a who's who aftershow party following later, this show was an undoubted success and something of a revelatory performance for the uninitiated.
5) 17 March 1999 - Trees, Dallas, TX
Having not performed live as a band since Ronald Jones quit in August 1996, the proper live return of the Flaming Lips was a positively spectacular one. Unveiling a large screen and a high-quality video projector, the band distributed headphones and FM receivers to the audience, and proceeded to transmit from the soundboard - the intention being to give a clear hi-fi mix backed by loud bass sounds from the PA. The combination of suitably Lips-esque imagery on screen - giant pictures of Steven hammering his drums included - and the powerful beats and orchestration from the new Soft Bulletin songs were an instant hit. Within weeks it was one of the most talked about shows around, and new audiences were being rapidly converted by their live experiences.
For the best part of the last 20 years, The Flaming Lips have been renowned for their live shows. Since even their first show, word of mouth has always been the way news has spread fast that these guys are all about putting on a serious show. Wayne's philosophy has always been that it is all too easy to go on stage, play your songs while looking at your feet, and then depart leaving the audience with the distinct impression that you think you are better than they are. Wayne would much rather that members of the audience go into work the next day remembering that they saw and experienced something a little different.
That 'something' has ranged from Wayne rolling around on the floor while playing his guitar in 1983, through various insane experiments with fire and fireworks in the later 1980s, to today's mixture of confetti, mirror balls, and men in rabbit suits performing before a giant video screen. Wayne happily explains the philosophy thus, "You came to see a show, we came to put on a show, let's do it."
This part of the site breaks down the different ways they have done exactly that throughout the band's existence, with a history of sorts and some details on each of the various types of performance that they've done. Plenty of photographs are included to show you what you've been missing. To make sure you don't miss any more, get yourself to the next Flaming Lips show in or near your town, because a show is what it always is, always has been, and always will be.