A night of aesthetic excess and glamour, The Flaming Lips two night residency at The Warfield, concluding on New Years Eve, was a night of confetti explosions, balloons, costumes, colors, and a psychedelic blur that was compounded with performances by Foxygen and Phantogram. With the the recent release of With a Little Help from My Fwends The Flaming Lips have re-created The Beatles Sgt. Pepper Album into a neo-psychedelic pop love affair that is a reminder of their ingenuity, as their daring interpretation of the iconic album proves their endless artillery of creativity. The venue was decked head to toe like a trippy Christmas tree in colorful art and posters, and what started with the electric energy of Foxygen, turned into a New Years Eve rendezvous that continued well past the twelve o’clock hour.
Dressed in a white suit, and frantically dancing around the stage, singer Sam France of Foxygen set the mood for the night, performing intoxicating, groove inducing tracks off their third album We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic like “No Destruction” and “Oh Yeah”. With a set of hypnotic, almost robot like back-up dancers in tow, Foxygen’s performance was marked with urgent vocals and constant movement. Rising from the monotony of Westlake Village, Foxygen, which is composed of Sam France and Jonathan Rado, brought their signature grungy and sweetly unfinished sound, that strikes a similarity to Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. France’s sharp bone structure, small frame, and ostentatious dance moves epitomized the fearlessness of this up and coming band. Their newest album …And Star Power provides for melodic interludes that are punctuated with the frustrations of youth, slowly melting into a whirl of distortion that become marinated in syrupy pop lines. With a stage presence that exudes sex and stardust, Foxygen has evolved to become a guiding comet for a lost generation, as they continue to seamlessly blend classic rhythms with a fresh veneer.
Following Foxygen, Phantogram took the stage and provided a sweetly ethereal experience, as singer Sarah Barthel donned a slightly see through black body suit, fishnets, and a golden sequined blazer. The zen before the storm of The Flaming Lips, Phantogram performed their characteristically clean vocal lines that oozed like honey over staccato like electronic beats in songs like “Fall in Love” and “When I’m Small.” Feminine power to boot, Phantogram kept the audience moving with decadent, sink your teeth in tracks like “Black Out Days” off their newest album, Voices. Bubbles, dimmed lights, and a kind of softness hung in the air as Barthel and Josh Carter moved between rich ballads to glittery numbers like “Don’t Move” that provided the necessary bridge into The Flaming Lips.
Ridiculous, unbelievable, and characteristically Wayne Coyne, The Lips brought their updated, New Years savvy brand of weird as Coyne was dressed in tin foil like pants that had a cluster of multi-colored pom pom balls that covered his groin area and feet. Joined on stage by individuals dressed as mushrooms and rainbows, The Flaming Lips tore through classics like “She Don’t Use Jelly” and “Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus With Needles”, as confetti poured over the audience. Towards the latter part of their set, Foxygen and Phantogram joined The Flaming Lips on stage to perform songs off of With a Little Help from My Fwends that included “A Day in the Life” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, arousing the audience into a full on dance frenzy. A cathartic rendition of “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” that swelled into a kaleidoscope of fuzz and echo delay, exploded like fireworks in a chaotically rich array of harmonies and of course, more confetti and balloons. Like the satisfying pop of a champagne bottle, Foxygen, Phantogram, and The Flaming Lips provided a five hour music marathon that catapulted the crowd into the stratosphere of 2015.
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