The Flaming Lips - Live at The Blind Pig, Ann Arbor, MI (10/3/89) Part 1
The Flaming Lips - Live at The Blind Pig, Ann Arbor, MI (10/3/89) Part 2
I saw the 'Lips way back when. Not sure when. Right after the first full length LP came out (that creamy white vinyl!!!) but long before the second album. At the magic box, O'Cayz.
As I remember, not many folks came out. And the set was short - maybe only 30 or 40 minutes, with a big chunk of it a feedback-drenched (which is a pale description of the actual sound) cover medley consisting of one or two lines each from a few dozen songs song over the noise. I remember bits of Beatles, Ramones, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, Beach Boys and there were lots more I noticed at the time but have forgotten. It was a psychedelic smorgasbord! (You can tell I'm a Midwesterner of some Scandinavian descent - words and phrases like "smorgasbord" and "lutefisk" and "death by alcohol poisoning" just roll off my lips!)
I loved it.
My brother-in-law, a totally swell fella from a totally swell family (I got lucky as far as in-laws go), is a big 'Lips fan. But he don't like the noisy early 'Lips. That's okay by me, but I like to tease him about it. This one's for Captain Dan (and someday I'll put up a recent show that he'll like more).
Note: Loving the 'Lips must run in the family. My son has a couple of albums on his Zen player and loves them. We're a multi-generational 'Lip-loving family!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Here It Is
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3 comments:
Dude, you're reading my mind! I saw the Lips once while "Hear It Is" was their only output- prior to "Oh, My Gawd...It's the Flaming Lips"(circa '89). In fact, they came through Lexington/Louisville so often- it seemed- that I got to know Wayne, Mike, and Richard English- their first drummer- pretty well, ended up doing a couple opening slots for them and one for them and Afghan Whigs. Enough namedropping. ;)
Those dudes could throw down like nobody's business in the early days. I still have a vivid memory...Tewligan's in Louisville, probably '89- possibly immediately prior to or after the show you upped- Wayne and Mike dressed in sparkly silver suits with silver instruments, playing louder than gawd to a disconcerting strobe and billowing pina colada scented fog, glittering silver platforms and Mike's giant whiteboy afro in silhouette. They were Queens of the Stone Age before Josh Homme ever dreamed of Kyuss, like KISS, in terms of spectacle but better musicians, a three-piece MC5 that kicked harder jams, and a more lucid Butthole Surfers. What a beautiful fucking spectacle they were.
Including the gigs we did opening, I must have seen them twenty times prior to, say, '92 and I can't tell you how disappointed I was when they got all poppy and into robots and Japanese anime. I can only listen to their newer stuff if I force myself to listen to them as a whole other band, not the Flaming Lips.
Anyway, thanks for the memories! Keep up the good work.
Before I moved away from Madison in late 1992, I think that was the only show they ever played there. Never got to see them again, though my brother-in-law's seen them recently and loved 'em.
Was just troling around when I saw this. What a great show and the reference to O'Cayz definately caught me. How many great shows I saw there. I lived in GB but Mad City seemed like a second home.
BTW I only had the pleasure of seeing the Lips once myself - in the backyard of a frat house at Northern Illinois University. What a blast!!
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