Pemberton Day 2: The Flaming Lips Chase the Elusive Freak Out
Before you ask: It’s teletubbies this tour. And even in the fading twilight heat, the folks in the suits were definitely sweating. As their puppet master floated over the crowd (okay, he kinda flopped) in his giant hamster ball, those on stage and off started dancing to “Race for the Prize.” And then, as if on cue, a cloud of smoke arose. For the rest of the set, Wayne Coyne fought pot lethargy with repeated attempts to get the kids jumping. It worked sometimes, as with “Free Radicals” — getting thousands of people screamed, “Fanatical, fuck!” is one way to wake them up. But it took “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” sung as a tender ballad, to really get the kids on his side. And when he did, Coyne looked out over his masterpiece with a beaming smile. “I’m glad you guys are freaking out,” he said, before ending with the one-two punch of “Do You Realize?” and “She Don’t Use Jelly.” “It makes us want to freak out, too.”
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