Readers, Liberty Hall knows how to throw a party, and we were happy to be on hand for the 100th Anniversary street party and Flaming Lips show last night!
Admittedly, we're never quite sincere nor stoned enough to appreciate the Lips' in their most pure form, but we're a sucker for spectacle, and the show certainly delivered. After a warning about the dangers of strobe lights and epilectic seizures (in certain rare cases, Wayne said, "It could really fuck you up!"), the show was off to a familiar start with "Race for the Prize" from The Soft Bulletin (one of our all-time faves) followed by a singalong of their biggest hit "She Don't Use Jelly" (unlike those sourpusses in Radiohead, who hardly ever deign to play "Creep" these days, Wayne doesn't mind trotting out some of the hits). Confetti-filled balloons floated and were popped. Weed was smoked in copious amounts by many. Wayne rolled around in his bubble. Naked women were projected on a large screen (though the dancers on stage remained clothed: this ain't Wakarusa fest, after all!). We tuned out during some of the more psychedelic noodly parts but woke up for a nice strummy "Yoshimi" singalong, which Wayne fucked up and had to start over but no one minded. "This song means more to this crowd than the Bible," said Chip, gazing on all sides at the stoned masses singing along with Wayne with faces upturned as if in prayer: "Those evil-natured robots, they're programmed to destroy us, she's gotta be strong to fight them, so she's taking lots of vitamins." Eventually it was encore time and the opening band, Deerhoof, emerged for an odd cover of Canned Heat's "Going Up the Country," performed more-or-less faithfully ("I'm going, I'm going, where the water tastes like wine"). And the evening ender? It was the official state rock song of Oklahoma, "Do You Realize," with Wayne's giant face projected on screen as he sang "Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face? Do you realize we're floating in space?" Oh, much of the crowd was indeed floating at this point.
Some other highlights:
Kliph Scurlock on stage during Deerhoof's set in a Lawrence Public Library shirt.
The wonderfully bouncy dance moves of Deerhoof's singer Satomi Matsuzaki. Adorable!
Wayne's encore "sermon" about how it means so much to him that people treat his silly pranks as if they're in the presence of true magic (as if each bit of confetti is "magic dust shot out of a dragon's ass"--that quote is paraphrased, but pretty close). Sure, he probably delivers the same speech at every show, but it still comes across as touching, as if he's truly humbled each time people show up and have fun, and perhaps he is.
Look at Wayne's giant face:
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When we heard that Sherron Collins would be signing books this afternoon at Dillon's, we were beside ourselves with excitement that this dude wrote a book! Would it finally reveal the inside scoop on that mysterious elevator incident? Would we able to understand the complexities of its language? We've always been huge fans of Sherron's tweets, even though most of them are over our heads (Examples: "Long night but an wary morning the grind." "Ooh ight fuck it me trynna help.").
But it turns out that Collins didn't write a book. He's simply featured in a new book called Beyond the Phog written by ESPN's Jason King, and the two will be signing copies together today. Details here from KU Sports. We'll see you out there, though one of our PBR Book Clubbers gave us the brilliant idea of trying to get Collins' to sign our copies of Roberto Bolano's 2666 instead!
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