Maybe it’s too early, but what are you doing New Year’s Eve? Unless you’re Down Under, you’re
not going to see The Flaming Lips’ annual
New Year’s Eve Freakout.
It’s true: Music’s favorite weirdoes will ring in 2013 in Australia, but in exchange, they’ve conjured up a holiday gift more appropriate than their usual end-of-year celebration.
Friday night marks the band’s return to the OKC Zoo Amphitheatre for the first time since Sept. 16, 2006’s “U.F.O.s at the Zoo,” the locally legendary concert that brought the Lips’ arena performance stylings to a grateful hometown crowd.
“That will stand as one of our greatest shows ever, but that’s not because of us,” said Lips front man Wayne Coyne. “It was a lot of coincidences: a perfect night, everybody on drugs. You don’t ever know what combination is going to make it extra-extra good, but that show was beyond something that we could claim responsibility for.”
The Lips have wanted to relive that magic at Zoo Amp for some time. With the Freakout headed for Tasmania and the impending break of longtime concert promoter Innervisions from Zoo Amp, they saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one show.
Expect
the usual Flaming Lips fanfare, but Friday’s “Freak Night” is being
touted as “the largest costume party in the Midwest!” Gates open at 5:30
p.m., and the show starts two hours later. Concerned about the wait? Be
fearless, freaks: The band has you covered.
If
you haven’t been keeping up with the Lips’ shenanigans this year, you
may not have heard that in May, the band’s collaborative album, Heady Fwends, was
released initially on limited-edition vinyl, with some 10,000 units
pressed with the artists’ actual blood. If you weren’t able (or were too
grossed out) to snap one of those up, this show offers a second chance
to become blood brothers with the Lips … and thousands of others.
Kristian von Hornsleth
Danish
conceptual artist Kristian von Hornsleth’s Deep Storage Project will be
there, in one of only two U.S. installations, to collect blood drops
and hair samples from willing participants. The resulting DNA will be
encapsulated in a 25-foot star-shaped sculpture to be placed 33,000 feet
deep in the Mariana Trench.
“After
the world is destroyed 100,000 years from now and aliens visit, they’ll
find this thing, and with all the samples in there, they’ll re-ignite
Earth’s civilization,” Coyne said.
“In the future, it’ll be made up of all these cool people who were
joined in on this art project. It’s weird.”
Where 2006 attendees found themselves immortalized on the
U.F.O. DVD,
then, 2012 attendees will have the opportunity to be immortalized,
quite liter ally. Even if living forever isn’t your bag, Coyne said
Friday night is an opportunity to see the Lips for free, before they
shake up their live show routine.
“We
have a new record coming out in January or February,” he said. “We’re
lucky to have built some time in at the end of 2012 to work out some
things that are radically different.”
Whether
for immortality, boredom or to witness the end of a performance era,
Coyne recognizes that faithful fans are critical to Freak Night’s
success.
“We’re the
catalyst for people to come be with their friends,” he said. “It’s going
to be the greatest show ever, don’t you think?”
Hey! Read This:
• Howard's end?: The battle continues over management of the OKC Zoo Amphitheatre and its operator, Howard Pollack
• The Flaming Lips & Heady Fwends album review
• The Flaming Lips 2011 interview
