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Last Updated: September 1, 2006 - 6:22 AM EDT
Flaming Lips, Ween lead fans 'underground' at the Allentown Fair
By Tom Coombe Of The Morning Call
Forget guitar solos, hit singles and "It's great to be here in Allentown." Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne got the most applause of any of the four acts Thursday at the Allentown Fair Grandstand simply by stepping into a large plastic bubble.
Maybe it was just the spectacle, or maybe it was that Lips disciples in the audience of roughly 5,000 knew that the bubble signals the start of the Oklahoma band's elaborate live show. Coyne gets in the bubble, they shoot confetti, streamers and balloons into the crowd and a bunch of dancing Martians and Santa Clauses conquer the stage.
Maybe it was just the spectacle, or maybe it was that Lips disciples in the audience of roughly 5,000 knew that the bubble signals the start of the Oklahoma band's elaborate live show. Coyne gets in the bubble, they shoot confetti, streamers and balloons into the crowd and a bunch of dancing Martians and Santa Clauses conquer the stage.
And let's not forget the guitarist in the skeleton costume and the stage hands dressed as Superman, Captain America and Space Ghost.
All of this might be cloying and overdone if it weren't for the Flaming Lips' music, which manages to insert a sort of cockeyed humanity into subjects as seemingly silly as giant, man-eating robots.
The Lips headlined what was likely the most "underground" bill in the fair's history, along with Bucks County natives Ween, veteran noise-rockers Sonic Youth and the Magic Numbers, an up-and-coming British power-pop quartet.
A lot of critics have compared the Numbers to the Mamas and the Papas, perhaps because they harmonize, or, like the 1960s group, they have two men and two women. But that certainly didn't come across during the quartet's 30-minute set which opened the six-hour show.
Still, aside from two slower numbers that were too soothing and pacifying for a late-afternoon outdoor festival, the Numbers did well, especially with the songs "Love Me Like You" and "Mornings Eleven."
They didn't exactly justify the hype that surrounded their 2005 debut album, but they held their own as openers for three much more experienced acts.
Sonic Youth has been around longer than maybe a third of Thursday's audience has been alive, having formed in New York in 1981. But they haven't yet begun phoning in live performances or putting out lukewarm albums.
Their latest disc, "Rather Ripped," is one of the New Yorkers' best in some time, and several songs from the album, including "What a Waste" and "Reena," translated well to the stage.
Still, two songs from "Daydream Nation," the band's break-out 1988 album, highlighted the set. "Candle" and "Teenage Riot" were bolstered by the addition of a third guitarist, something that added new layers to the already beautiful "Riot."
Ween, which formed in New Hope in 1984, put aside the weirdness audience members may have expected and seemed to morph into a jammy classic-rock band. Through a large portion of its set, Ween sounded like a group that might have toured with the Doobie Brothers or Grand Funk Railroad 30 years ago. Tapping briefly into the brilliant "Chocolate and Cheese" album, Ween reached the high point of its show with that album's "Take Me Away," with singer Gene Ween turning the song from lounge into hard rock.
Then came the Flaming Lips, the costumes, the confetti and Coyne in the big plastic bubble. Coyne emerged from it to open the show with "Race For the Prize," from 1999's "The Soft Bulletin."
Of all of Thursday's performers, he had the best rapport with the audience, leading them in sing-alongs. It worked worked with "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" -- the best song they did -- but not so much with the first part of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."
But the Lips quickly recovered with an intense version of the (instrumental) second part of the song. It was that energy, plus Coyne's plainly visible enjoyment of the whole event, that made it all work.
"I used to wish for something this cool when I was 17 and going to the state fair," he told the audience. Instead, he added, they just got "frog croaking contests."
tom.coombe@mcall.com
610-559-2157
All of this might be cloying and overdone if it weren't for the Flaming Lips' music, which manages to insert a sort of cockeyed humanity into subjects as seemingly silly as giant, man-eating robots.
The Lips headlined what was likely the most "underground" bill in the fair's history, along with Bucks County natives Ween, veteran noise-rockers Sonic Youth and the Magic Numbers, an up-and-coming British power-pop quartet.
A lot of critics have compared the Numbers to the Mamas and the Papas, perhaps because they harmonize, or, like the 1960s group, they have two men and two women. But that certainly didn't come across during the quartet's 30-minute set which opened the six-hour show.
Still, aside from two slower numbers that were too soothing and pacifying for a late-afternoon outdoor festival, the Numbers did well, especially with the songs "Love Me Like You" and "Mornings Eleven."
They didn't exactly justify the hype that surrounded their 2005 debut album, but they held their own as openers for three much more experienced acts.
Sonic Youth has been around longer than maybe a third of Thursday's audience has been alive, having formed in New York in 1981. But they haven't yet begun phoning in live performances or putting out lukewarm albums.
Their latest disc, "Rather Ripped," is one of the New Yorkers' best in some time, and several songs from the album, including "What a Waste" and "Reena," translated well to the stage.
Still, two songs from "Daydream Nation," the band's break-out 1988 album, highlighted the set. "Candle" and "Teenage Riot" were bolstered by the addition of a third guitarist, something that added new layers to the already beautiful "Riot."
Ween, which formed in New Hope in 1984, put aside the weirdness audience members may have expected and seemed to morph into a jammy classic-rock band. Through a large portion of its set, Ween sounded like a group that might have toured with the Doobie Brothers or Grand Funk Railroad 30 years ago. Tapping briefly into the brilliant "Chocolate and Cheese" album, Ween reached the high point of its show with that album's "Take Me Away," with singer Gene Ween turning the song from lounge into hard rock.
Then came the Flaming Lips, the costumes, the confetti and Coyne in the big plastic bubble. Coyne emerged from it to open the show with "Race For the Prize," from 1999's "The Soft Bulletin."
Of all of Thursday's performers, he had the best rapport with the audience, leading them in sing-alongs. It worked worked with "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" -- the best song they did -- but not so much with the first part of "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."
But the Lips quickly recovered with an intense version of the (instrumental) second part of the song. It was that energy, plus Coyne's plainly visible enjoyment of the whole event, that made it all work.
"I used to wish for something this cool when I was 17 and going to the state fair," he told the audience. Instead, he added, they just got "frog croaking contests."
tom.coombe@mcall.com
610-559-2157
Copyright © 2006, The Morning Call
