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Saturday 3 July 2010

The Flaming Lips 'The W.A.N.D.'


I saw some of Glastonbury on the TV last weekend, most of the Gorillaz and some other bits and bobs. The reviews have all been pretty negative about Gorillaz. It looked fantastic on the telly, but apparently the Top Shop/Hollyoaks Glastonbury massive wanted a band with more hits and couldn't maintain interest in a band featuring the frontman from Blur, half of The Clash, Mos Def, Bobby Womack,Shaun Ryder, Mark E. Smith, Lou Reed and anyone else who was wandering past and fancied a bash at vocals. Does sound a bit rubbish when what you really wanted was U2 doesn't it? Young people today eh?

At some point I saw the end of The Flaming Lips set, where they played a mind-blowingly great version of their greatest song Do You Realise? and I finally got round to watching the rest of The Flaming Lips' set on the BBC's Glastonbury website last night. For a bunch of drug-crazed, leftwing, middle-aged acid-hippies they may be just about the most entertaining band on the planet. Apart from the sheer quality of the songs (Do You Realise?, She Don't Use Jelly, The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Song, Yoshimi Battles The Giant Robots etc) they have charisma and presence in spades. Wayne Coyne's gigantic beach ball entrance, confetti, projections and films, random dancers wearing orange, aliens, the lot. I can appreciate that they're not everyone's cup of tea but it was very impressive stuff. The W.A.N.D. was a 2006 download single, that later turned up on their slightly disappointing At War With The Mystics album. It's an anti George W. Bush, anti-war lyric set to a huge riff and crashing drums, like Black Sabbath if they'd actually been any good and had a sense of humour.

10 The W.A.N.D.wma

2 comments:

hsd said...

all other popular music is rendered 2nd rate after the Flaming Lips.
I also read reviews of Gorillaz and what they 'dissed' sounded like something I would like to see; only saw one song on the highlights with Bobby Womack singing and thought it was brilliant.
Highlight apart from from that was weirdly Shakira.

Swiss Adam said...

The run of special guests- Shaun Ryder, MES, Lou Reed- in 3 songs was jaw dropping, although Lou Reed looked like soneone had shat on his guitar just before going onstage.