Green Apple Festival: Flaming Lips

This is basically just my response to Sam getting to go to Coachella, but sadly does not compare. Today was the Green Apple Festival in Washington DC, which is basically the big event leading up to earth day. In my other life I am some what of an environmental advocate so I was happy to support the cause and the Flaming Lips were headlining, so all the better.

When I first showed up Moe. was finishing their set....moving on. Then Wayne came on stage to do sound check and talk to the crowd about nothing, which seemed a little odd, but hey, this is the Flaming Lips so I let it slide. They started off the set by sending Wayne crowd-surfing in his plastic zorb ball, which is quite honestly the coolest thing ever, and then breaking into "Race for the Prize", one of my favorites off The Soft Bulletin. From then on things waffeled between hysterical (everything Wayne did, including shooting confetti into the crowd, spraying smoke machines in his bandmates faces, dancing with a group of 12 yr old girls on stage called the green urban club, and mocking Lisa Jackson, head of the EPA, with huge plastic hands-of-god) and awesome (when they actually played music).

For the most part they were just having fun up there and didnt really give a shit, which was perfect for a hungover, cloudy, sunday afternoon. The short set included, both Yoshimi's, "Fight Test", "Do you Realize?", "She Don't Use Jelly", and a pretty epic cover of Madonna's "Borderline" (apparently a second choice after Prince denied them right to play his songs). All in all it was a great show and I don't feel bad about not going to Coachella at all....

Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots