The Flaming Lips review: Wayne Coyne and co hit the heights for brilliant gig at Olympia, Dublin

Irish Examiner

29-04-2025

The Flaming Lips, Olympia, Dublin, ★★★★★
Before they even start, Flaming Lips' sharp-suited front man Wayne Coyne bounds from the wings of the Olympia stage to halt the PA playing Thin Lizzy so he can tell a story. He and his siblings used to sing 'The Coynes are back in town' during the 1970s, and could we try that tonight? The song rewinds, the crowd roar his family's name, and Coyne is already claiming this as 'one of the greatest gigs we're ever gonna play'.
The Lips – five of them including Mr Wayne – open with Flight Test from 2002's swirling pop masterwork Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, played in its entirety for this first set. It's hardly begun before the Olympia is a blizzard of monster-shaped confetti, the hypnotic digital backdrop is in full effect (pleasingly, a stagehand has to tap it the odd time to banish gremlins), and two giant pink robots from the album cover are inflated. Coyne's prediction has already proven prescient.
He's delighted to be here and why wouldn't he with a band as remarkable as this? They finesse sounds out of keyboards and guitars – and gorgeous pedal steel - that seem drawn from another realm but are anchored to this one by Tommy McKenzie's rubbery bass and the double bass drum heft of Matt Duckworth Kirksey, who looks like John Bonham in a pink wig at a kid's party.
Flaming Lips at the Olympia.
Massive confetti-filled balloons float over the congregation, adding to the pandemonium when they burst, and the lighting rigs either side of Coyne employ lasers that wouldn't have shamed The Who in their pomp.
'Audiences often sound like drunk uncles but you guys can sing,' Wayne marvels after his vocals are eclipsed by the ecstatic throng's commandeering of Ego Tripping At The Gates Of Hell. An enormous, light-refracting mirrorball is wheeled on only to be replaced by a floppy rainbow arch for a deeply moving Do You Realize?? Either there was something in the tea that nice man in the wizard outfit gave me or this really is one of the greatest gigs ever.
The second half is a best of The Lips celebration including cuts from 1999's spectacular symphonic skyscraper The Soft Bulletin. More balloons fly through She Don't Use Jelly, Coyne dons Peter Gabriel's old flower-head rigout for Flowers Of Neptune 6 and then sports a Wonder Woman muumuu (really) during a superb Waiting For Superman.
There are roadies dressed as the sun, as aliens covered in tinsel, then as two oversized dancing eyeballs. The Lips finish with a Race For The Prize which reminds at least one tired hack why he fell so hard for this rock'n'roll stuff in the first place. A joyous, life-affirming, euphoric, and truly psychedelic experience.