Flaming Lips Get Affectionate With Atlanta Audience

Ask any Flaming Lips fan about the band's shows and you'll hear much the same thing: crazy, wild, trippy and full of costumes, props and, of course, singer Wayne Coyne's inflatable crowd-surfing ball. But what do the madmen in the Oklahoma City band think of their crowd? Based on Coyne's compliments to the rabidly excited crowd at Atlanta's Chastain Park last night, the answer is quite a lot.

Amidst a set full of new tunes off of the upcoming 'Embryonic' (the call and response howling of 'Silver Trembling Hands' will be a Lips staple before tour's end) and retooled classics (super-slow balladeer takes on 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1' and 'Fight Test'), Coyne took some time to explain just why his audience was so damn beautiful. "The Flaming Lips' audience is the most beautiful audience in the world. Other bands will tell you that, but it's not true," Coyne joked to the packed crowd. "Because it's not just about getting drunk and being rowdy. It is rowdy, but it's love-rowdy. We shoot confetti on you and you act like it's little celestial pieces falling on you. You make this magic."

Coyne then explained how a fan had slipped him a note detailing the situation of a friend in extremely poor health; the usually bouncy, smiling front man couldn't have been more sincere. "What you do that'll change the world is you give your energy and enthusiasm, so that anyone in the crowd who is in despair is going to leave feeling great," he said.

The band then launched into closer 'She Don't Use Jelly' and eventual encore 'Do You Realize??' which erupted into a veritable hurricane of confetti, streamers and flashing strobes just as an actual storm formed overhead. But as predictably wild as the performance was, it was hard to top Coyne's moment of genuine emotion.