I’d actually assumed that the Lips had chosen Dinosaur Jr and Deerhoof to support them on Friday night at Ally Pally (see Ally Pally Flaming Lips Gig) because they’re fantastic bands that the Lips knew: and the albums they each chose to play in their entirety had been selected because they were brilliant, landmark albums.
But that was before I arrived at the gig and remembered how left-field Wayne Coyne’s thinking really is. Listening to the bands and the three albums being played live, one after another, I realised that:
- each album has the best track upfront as track 1 and
- a more difficult, less often (I suspect) listened to second side which means that
- playing any of the albums in the original track list sequence feels totally counter-intuitive as a live spectacle. Oh…and
- each band is fronted by a beautifully expressive singer who occasionally ‘struggles’ with what many non-fans would call traditional singing…or notes.
Which, I think, on reflection, is as likely an explanation for Wayne Coyne choosing this line-up as anything more straightforward. It’s also why these bands and these albums are so wonderful and why the gig was so so special and well…emotional. How could it ever not have been…given who was present on that very special evening?
In case you’re not that familiar with the not-totally-designed-to-be-played-live-in-sequence-and-end-on-an-optimistic-crowd-pleaser nature of the albums, I’ve included the last track, ‘Don’t', from the brilliant but definitely-front-loaded-when-it-comes-to-hits album, ‘Bug’, by Dinosaur Jr on this news item.
Hello, caught Dino Jr playing a live set in HMV on Oxford Street at the end of June and boy, they are still loud in close quarters. New stuff nearly the equal of their old gold…
Loudest of the three bands at Ally Pally too. Think the last great Dino Jr song was ‘Feel The Pain’ from 94. Could easliy be wrong though and have missed a later one??? NMJ