Art finds a way.
“Living in a bubble” used to be an expression that described a person’s tendency to shut themselves out from the greater world. Last Monday, psych-rock band, The Flaming Lips, gave a whole new meaning to the expression by performing a live concert in Oklahoma City in which every person in attendance was covered in a life-size plastic bubble.
For anyone who has ever witnessed the fantastic theatricality of a Flaming Lips live performance, or knows anything about its wonderfully eccentric frontman, Wayne Coyne, it’s no surprise that the band was the first to play a bubble concert. In pre-pandemic shows, it wasn’t unusual for Coyne to encase himself in a plastic bubble and bounce over the hands of the audience mid-performance of The W.A.N.D.
Now that a pandemic has majorly disrupted concerts and live performances, in which collective gatherings of people pose a threat to all in attendance, Coyne and the band have had to think outside the box on how to proceed. The answer – more bubbles.
Last Monday, the Grammy-winning band performed a concert in their hometown of Oklahoma City at the Criterion with every person in attendance encased in an inflatable bubble.
