Flaming Lips hit a home run at Hollywood Forever (and reprise ‘Do You Realize’ for the dawn patrol)

Kevin Bronson on June 15th, 2011

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By Molly Bergen

Hollywood Forever Cemetery was transformed into a Flaming Lips wonderland on Tuesday night. Electric icicles dripped from the trees, and a halved disco ball the size of a Volkswagen spun, suspended from scaffolding resembling a tambourine with giant silver hubcaps that spun with Christmas lights. Even the solemn mausoleums got jazzed up in bright jeweled tones of purples, greens, and crimsons.

The crowd frolicked as if it was All Hallows’ Eve, dressed in white bunny suits, bear hats, bright feathers and zombie paint. The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus appeared; children played on the grassy expanse. All of that, however, paled in comparison to the unearthly beauty of the graveyard at night, with its palm trees gently swaying in the cool summer breeze, which carried the whiff of high times, all under a watchful moon ringed in gold clouds.

Perfect conditions, then, for an airing of the Flaming Lips’ sixth album, “The Soft Bulletin.” This wasn’t even a slow lob for the Oklahoma-bred psych-rockers to hit out of the park. It was tee ball. All they had to do was haul back and swing.

In fact, the Flaming Lips were so worried about how much fun the crowd was going to have that lead singer Wayne Coyne came out before the concert and warned the crowd that if the strobe lights were having a “bad effect” on them, they could always close their eyes. He also promised to try and make this wonderful, weird event an annual thing.

Then with a great flourish the Lips emerged from a giant glowing eyeball on stage and began with a number that most bands would have reserved for the end, “Race For the Prize.” Confetti, balloons and streamers exploded into the crowd in great puffs of white smoke as Coyne climbed into a plastic ball crowd surfed around the front row. The stage was filled with dancers in matching uniforms who constantly boogied, even during the slow jam sessions (no easy task).

The real magic came from the crowd, hundreds of people standing on the grass in the dark singing an album at the top of their lungs. Even though the setlist was obvious, occasionally a song would come on that would lead to a mini-freak out from someone nearby, an involuntary “I love this song!” (This happened most prominently during “The Sparks That Bled.”) Coyne also told stories about the origins of each song, reminiscing about when he heard that Elliott Smith had passed away, or when Stephen got a giant spider bite that had gone bad and he almost lost his hand.

There was a fan in a skeleton costume who roamed around the crowd remarking to perfect strangers, “This is awesome, isn’t it?” It was. The evening closed with an encore of hits. The Lips played “She Don’t Use Jelly,” “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and “Do You Realize?” – which had a lot of people in tears. In fact it was so beautiful, that Coyne invited the whole crowd to a concert at dawn the next morning in front of the bell tower with Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros.

How could one resist such an offer? So at 5:45 this morning, we climbed out of bed and went to check it out. Fighting the hum of the traffic on Santa Monica Blvd, the Lips played acoustically on the front lawn of the cemetery. A small group of enthusiastic but sleepy fans gathered in the gray morning light on the grass. Using the bells in the tower, the band played a gentle, drawn-out version of “Do You Realize?” and then quickly melted back into the gates. Coyne stayed behind to thank the crowd and explain that they were worried about the cops showing up.