For several years, The Flaming Lips‘ vocalist Wayne Coyne has performed on stage in a large plastic bubble. So when the pandemic put live music on pause due to social distancing measures, Coyne knew he had the perfect solution. After months of tweaks and preparations, The Flaming Lips have officially announced “the worlds first space bubble” concert.
The show takes place this December in the band’s Oklahoma City hometown and concertgoers will be able to experience a full-production Flaming Lips show from the safety of a personal plastic bubble. The band has already tested out the plausibility of making the in-person show safe for everyone involved when they showcased two songs from their recently-released record American Head at a bubble concert in October. Sharing a preview of how it will go down, the group debuted a video alongside their “Brother Eye” track.
Speaking about how he came up with the idea in a recent interview, Coyne explained:
“I made a little cartoon commentary of a Flaming Lips concert in 2019 where I’m the only one in a bubble and then a Flaming Lips concert in 2020 where everyone is in a bubble on stage and in the crowd. That was at the start of quarantine in March when we thought it would be over in a month. But The Late Show With Stephen Colbert got a hold of me and asked if we’d want to do one of these concerts where you play from home. So we said we’d do it in the space bubbles. It took us a month or two to figure out the logistics so we didn’t even really know if this would still be going on by the time it aired but that was in June, and after that I ordered 100 space bubbles to be made in China. It’s taken a while but I finally have them here, so a half-hour ago I was in a big venue where we set up a hundred space bubbles for 300 audience members to be in while we play a show.”
Watch The Flaming Lips’ “Brother Eye” video above.
Tickets for their Oklahoma City concert go on sale 11/13 at 10 a.m. CT. Get them here.
American Head is out now via Warner Music. Get it here.
The Flaming Lips are a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.