By Matt Hanson

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots was the only record of the Flaming Lips that I knew in any real depth; it turns out that the band’s live show was  heartwarming, a buoyant and visually exuberant experience.

At the Flaming Lips show in Saenger Theatre, New Orleans. Photo: Matt Hanson

There is a certain unique charm that comes with seeing a band play live whose music you only partly know. It can sometimes be distracting to hear songs you’ve fallen in love with played in a certain way performed differently, maybe accompanied by wobbly sound quality or to a bored crowd. That’s the peril of live music: great songs can be ruined by exposure to the elements. On the other hand, one of the pleasures of live music is that you can discover a little bit more about a particular band’s aesthetic when you see them live.

When I heard that The Flaming Lips, who have been impressively following their quirky, psychedelic muse since the ’80s, are touring behind their acclaimed 2002 opus Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, I wanted to check out their appearance at New Orleans’s Saenger Theatre. That was the only record of the band’s that I knew in any real depth; it turns out that their live show was similarly heartwarming, a buoyant and visually exuberant experience.

Part of what I’ve always liked about Yoshimi as a record was its spacy sweetness. The title track’s earnest melody glides upwards over its loping beat, telling of our titular heroine’s courageous task, which is to save “us” from those evil technological threats. There’s a cartoonish quality to the glistening soundscape and the absurd imagery — since when are evil robots pink? — giving the record a winning playfulness. The album’s lyrics are, figuratively on the record and more literally when played live, written in Day-Glo.

Which isn’t to say that there isn’t some depth. “Ego Tripping at The Gates of Hell” sounds like far-out stoner speak, and to some extent it is. Yet there’s something pithy in lilting lines like “I was waiting for the moment/ But the moment never came/ All the billion other moments/ Were slipping all away.” Ain’t it the truth? All the better if sung by a guy dressed in a flower costume.

I dug seeing the lyrics appear and fade on a giant illuminated screen behind the band, a strategy that commands attention. It’s like leaving subtitles on when you watch TV — it makes the show more vivid. Affable lead singer Wayne Coyne warbles from within a clear plastic bubble, as the glowing psychedelic outline of a naked woman sways and undulates to the beat over the circulating swirl of colors and shapes. Fun! If anything, it made the existential sentiments go down more easily.

After they finished playing Yoshimi in full, the Lips trotted out some of their older material. Coming back from intermission we had “She Don’t Use Jelly” which is the song most ’90s kids would immediately recognize. It’s a fun little surrealist ditty that makes no real sense but sure is amusing to belt out. It’s a great period song because — as catchy as it is — it makes a virtue of not trying very hard. “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” poses some interesting moral questions: “If you could blow up the world with the flick of a switch/ would you do it/ would you take all the love without giving any back/ would you do it?” while two big googly eyes and a massive pair of lips start wiggling. The chorus repeatedly flips between yes or no. I guess the jury’s still out on those questions, or at least we can hope. “With all your power, what would you do” is a pretty pertinent question these days in any number of ways.

At the Flaming Lips show in Saenger Theatre, New Orleans. Photo: Matt Hanson

Amid all the flashing lights and electronic doodads (at one point they sent a motorized bird flying out into the air) “Do You Realize??” is the true showstopper. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of the greatest songs ever written. I remember someone on a podcast once remarking that they had heard it played at both weddings and funerals. It’s that kind of song. A secular hymn.

The tune’s poignant, proverb-like lyrics lay it out for us, frankly and sweetly and poignantly: “Do you realize/ that you have the most beautiful face/ do you realize/ we’re floating in space/ do you realize/ that happiness makes you cry/ do you realize/ that everyone you know someday will die/ do you realize?” Yes, we do realize that, I think. And yet it seems like so much of our time is spent trying to forget or ignore it. Maybe because it’s too much to bear?

It was nice to hear this song on a record, but in performance its beauty is enhanced tenfold. It is inspiring to hear the stratospherically uplifting chorus underline the facts of life, asking us to consider how quickly everything passes and how precious everything is even as it inexorably fades away. Add to that a plastic rainbow that inflates while green laser lights float and crisscross in front of the stage, the hallucinogenic dancing girl on the screen doing her thing, and Coyne’s trebly voice belting out the lyrics.

At the Flaming Lips show in Saenger Theatre, New Orleans. Photo: Matt Hanson

When the song finished, Coyne sincerely instructed the audience to tell the people they came with that they loved them. I went solo, but I texted. It might indeed be a little corny. I balk as easily as the next grouch at such a guileless request. But hey — given the abject state of the world today, and of the human condition at that, maybe it’s worth taking a second now and then to realize the utter joy of merely being alive, keeping the pink robots at bay.

Matt Hanson is a contributing editor at the Arts Fuse whose work has also appeared in the American Interest, the Baffler, the Guardian, the Millions, the New Yorker, the Smart Set, and elsewhere. A longtime resident of Boston, he now lives in New Orleans.