Flaming Lips: Tragedy, Triumph and a Day in the Life

"Exciting day now, huh?" says Flaming Lips tour manager Chris, with an I'm-used-to-it smirk, as he supervises load-in at Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square where his band is headlining Spinner's free daylong NXNE concert.

There is, of course, no way he could've known how darkly prophetic his words would become when, in a few hours from now, tragedy will strike on the north side of the city where Radiohead is setting up for their own concert.

We were supposed to meet Wayne Coyne and the band in the lobby of their hotel at 10 a.m. to get the band to the Square in time for soundcheck. But when Chris calls them just after the hour to see how close they are, he wakes them up. In Buffalo, New York.

It turns out the band had set up shop in a recording studio to put the final touches on an album they plan to release some time next year and work on a score for documentary about photographer Mick Rock. ("There were some pretty solid days of wake up and not just write music, but create it, record it, mix it and remix it," Coyne later says, "what a great way to spend a couple days in the studio.")

So they stayed up late, and slept in late, too. Not only do they have to get packed, check out and hit the road, but they still have to cross the crowded border at Niagara Falls the morning after thousands came down to watch that Nik Wallenda dude walk across the Falls. We were planning to spend the day with Coyne, but the only thing cemented on the itinerary was soundcheck. Now everything's up in the air.

Setting up the stage for the Lips is somewhat more complicated than it is for most bands, what with the giant disco ball that must be raised, the light wall that will background the band and the massive balloons that will later burst forth onto the crowd. Giant laser hands are shoved in a corner. Boxes are unpacked and strewn about.

"I didn't know the Lips were Canadian. There are maple leafs everywhere," cracks a local stagehand, referring to the marijuana leaf logos adorning their gear.

"Don't worry, Wayne will make this happen," Chris reassures. "Where's this airing? The internet? Then you can get away with more."

"So there will be nudity?" we joke.

"Probably some nudity, probably some drugs," Chris says with a laugh.

What we didn't expect was death.


We track Coyne's travel via his twitter feed.

"Leaving Fredonia for the Peace Bridge," he tweets at 11:53 a.m. An hour or so later he's "Hangin at the Peace Bridge." And finally, at 1:48 p.m., the tweet we've been waiting for: "Alright!!!!! No hassle at border crossing!!!" Still, it takes a couple more hours for Coyne to arrive in downtown Toronto. And just as he does, word spreads that the stage up in Downsview Park, where 40,000 people were beginning to gather for a sold-out Radiohead show, has collapsed. The lighting rig came crashing down, killing drum tech Scott Johnson just minutes before the band themselves were to do their soundcheck.


"So sorry to hear about the bad shit at the Radiohead stage ..... Fuck!!! All respect!! All love!!! Our thoughts are with you," Coyne tweets from his room before coming downstairs to meet Spinner in the lobby of the Pantages Hotel, just a couple blocks from Yonge-Dundas Square where the Flaming Lips are scheduled to play at 9:30 p.m. tonight.

Coyne walks over to one of his crew, his face as ashen as his trademark grey suit, which, like Coyne himself, is intrinsically stylish despite being ripped at the seams. He wants to know how this could have happened, in the literal not figurative sense.

"You've seen their show? I mean they've got all that video stuff. Too much weight in the wrong places? Or just too much weight overall? Have you seen pictures? Was it Radiohead's fault or the stage's fault? The PA towers are still up and that whole center section. Oh my God!"

Coyne turns to us. "It's one thing to say our stage collapsed, it's another thing to say the Sugarland stage collapsed. But when the Radiohead stage collapses, it's like who's doing this shit right?"

"That's like six really big ones in the past two years," his roadie adds, shaking his head.

Flip Through Photos of Our Day with The Flaming Lips
It's now a little after 6 p.m. when we sit down to talk.

"Well damn, what a weird day. It was going to be what a wicked night of music to be living in Toronto," Coyne says.

"You guys went through this," I reply.

"Well, I mean nothing like this. Our stage collapse was brought on by the Oklahoma weather. I don't think that the stage we were on was built very good anyway, we had questions about it. And then when this weather erupts in Oklahoma. We had a little bit of a warning, we weren't in the middle of setting up the way this Radiohead thing happened. It's always a shock as to how heavy this stuff is. There's always some hazard, even when people know their shit.

I ask if this will change things?

"For me what it will change is that Radiohead doesn't have this guy with them anymore. That's a horrible thing to him. For a band, this is like our family. We travel with these guys, we live with these guys, we love these guys. It would be a blow to the whole idea of putting on shows."

The immediate effect of the Radiohead cancellation, however is that ticketholder will descend on Yonge-Dundas Square for the Lips show, adding an unexpected subtext to their performance.

"If we're going to be realistic, there's probably a lot tragedies that happened in Toronto today. It's a giant city. We're aware that's the world, and, given the nature of our music, there were probably already going to be people in the audience that were coming to our show as a relief from some horrible sadness," Coyne says.

"We were going to play the one piece of a Radiohead song that we know well enough anyway, just because it was a cool event to be playing at the same time as them. And so we will probably go ahead and do something like that to acknowledge that it's happened. I think a lot of Flaming Lips songs in general sort of take the idea that life is beautiful, that it is full of hazards, that it is sometimes more horrible than it is beautiful and we have to be happy about it anyway. I think our show has always been a celebration."

"That's 'Do You Realize?' right there.



"It is that. And that's what makes life so great. Bad things are tough. Bad things are coming. We have to embrace all these things. And I don't want to make it seem like everything about life is precious. We have to live kind of reckless or we get caught up in being too cautious. Everything throws you into rethinking what your life is. And it impacts the people whose family this is. We can't pretend that it impacts us the same way."

Throughout out interview, during which Coyne is looking outside through the hotel lobby windows, people wave as they pass by en route to the concert. After we wrap, we join the stream of people walking north towards the Square, and then over to the backstage entrance.

"Oh, you guys are getting into your costumes," Coyne exclaims brightly as he ducks into Of Montreal's dressing room, which is really just a makeshift white tent. He then scouts out the site, checking his gear and going over the setlist. He looks up at the disco ball hanging in the centre of the stage and grins.

Coyne then leaves to grab some food. We walk back towards the hotel and around the corner to Fran's Diner, a local staple around since the 1940s. Coyne orders a plate of fries and leans over to show me a gory image on his phone.

"Can you tell me what that is?" he asks.

"A heart?" I reply.

"Oh yeah, a heart. That's what it is."

Glancing above the bloody picture I notice it's photo-text from Amanda Palmer.

Over at the next table, a group of kids recognize Wayne. Turns out they were at the Radiohead gig and one even saw the collapse. Coyne takes his phone and twit-vids the kid.

"I was walking to the porta potties and I heard noise like metal grinding," he says. "I looked to my left and saw the stage coming down in a V shape. It didn't look good."

"Wow, pretty heavy," Wayne says as he turns back to us. "Just a bizarre day, talking to a guy who saw the whole thing."

A few minutes later a teenage girl in a tight Nirvana tee walks over to the table to introduce herself.

"It's so random that you're here," she says.

"Well, we're playing down the street. It's not that random," he replies. "Plus, we're hungry."

She goes on to pitch him on Amnesty International, where she has recently started volunteering. But she doesn't ask him to film a commercial or otherwise use his celebrity to help her cause. Instead, she gives him the door-to-door canvassing speech to get him to become a monthly contributor. "I'm just so oblivious to anything that's going on except for my own pathetic little world," Coyne admits. Then he puts the pamphlet in his pocket.

As we pay up and return to the Square, people young and old recognize Coyne. He is unfailingly polite. As we approach the back entrance, police direct us around a young concert-goer lying prone on the ground, being tended to by paramedics. Coyne heads into his "dressing room," removes his suit jacket and wraps a faux-fur stole around his neck while he watches Portugal. the Man's heavier-than-expected set from the side-stage.

The crowd stretches out as far as one can see, spilling out of the Square and up and down Yonge Street, now shut down to automotive traffic to accommodate all the people. NXNE organizers have beefed up police presence and security in anticipation of the added influx of Radiohead refugees. Rumors are reverberating around the city that Radiohead will play an impromptu set. But the British band is under lockdown at Downsview as the investigation unfolds.

I ask Coyne if he thinks Radiohead will show. He shakes his head.

"I wouldn't come down," he says. "That was horrible." While roadies prep the stage for the Lips' performance, Coyne wanders about, chatting up the lovely ladies dressed as Wizard of Oz's Dorothy who will be dancing onstage. As start time approaches, Coyne stands off by himself. He stretches, jumps, runs his hands through his shock of grey hair.

The band begins to climb a ladder where they will descend down a slide and be birthed onto the stage. The cheering mounts as each member plunges forward. Then the infamous hamster ball is inflated, with Wayne inside, and he begins to roll out amongst the crowd, dramatically increasing the crowd's excitement. Music fills the air, as does a rainbow of giant balloons. Confetti canons fire. The square has been transformed into a life-affirming spectacle.

"A lot of you should be watching Radiohead today," Coyne says, a few songs in. "This unthinkable thing that happened over at their show today, it can't help but affect all of our moods, all of our thoughts. Our collective good karma goes directly to them and the family of the person who unfortunately was killed today. It was going to be a great coincidence, a great cosmic collision to be playing on Toronto while Radiohead was also playing here. We love Radiohead and we hope that they're able to continue on and be so inspirational. Peace be with their hearts tonight."


Then the band starts playing Radiohead's "Knives Out," a song planned as a hat tip and which is now a poignant tribute of funereal beauty. Later, Wayne introduces "Waiting for a Superman" by saying that "everyone looks for an answer when stuff like this happens. This song says just hold on the best you can."

The show comes to a close with "Do You Realize?" "This has been a pretty powerful day," Coyne says by way of introduction. "This goes out to the Radiohead family."

As the 25,000-strong crowd sings "that everyone you know someday will die" it becomes a cathartic release, replacing pain with joy, death with life and devastation with rock 'n' roll.

"People just want to feel love," Coyne says to me backstage. "And when you got something to say to them, man..." He smiles and shakes his head.

After an hour or so of backstage decompression with the other bands and the pretty Dorothys, Coyne heads out to the street where fans have been patiently waiting. He's mobbed by people wanting autographs, handshakes, pictures. Eventually, a phalanx of security step in to help Coyne escape down the street to his hotel, leaving behind an epic night that, like the best Flaming Lips songs, spun triumph from tragedy.

And so what could have seen just another show from a band three decades into their career became a moment in musical history that nobody who witnessed it will soon forget.