Pop Quiz: The Flaming Lips

Pop Quiz: The Flaming Lips

Aidin Vaziri | It's hard to think of a better way to welcome a new year than with the Flaming Lips, even if it is a day early. The Oklahoma cosmic rock band, which released the highly praised "At War With the Mystics" this year, typically begins its shows where others end: Balloons drop, cannons shoot confetti, puppets appear, grown men jump around in bunny suits and singer Wayne Coyne acts like the mad ringleader, walking over the audience in a giant space ball. You can only imagine what will happen on a special occasion, like when the band joins Gnarls Barkley and Cat Power on Dec. 30 at the Bill Graham Civic for a pre-New Year's Eve party. Coyne tells us what to expect.


Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips
Q: You're playing San Francisco the night before New Year's Eve. You got somewhere better to be for the real thing?
A: I think we were trying to do a couple New Year's shows and we couldn't decide between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but at the same time we were offered to be on the Oklahoma float in the Rose Parade on New Year's at 5 o'clock in the morning in Pasadena. So we thought, if we played New Year's in Los Angeles, we could be on the float two hours later.
Q: Is there anything people should know before coming to the show?
A: We are going to attempt a big UFO-landing entrance. It should be pretty crazy. We have to do at least one or two songs with Cat Power and Gnarls Barkley. So we're trying to work up one of these universal humanitarian songs. Maybe "Wonderful World." That's what you want to see.
Q: Should people wear knee pads?
A: Knee pads? Why knee pads?
Q: Just for general safety purposes.
A: Well, we always suggest if people want to dress up, a good quarter of the audience at any Flaming Lips show, without even being prodded, will dress up as their favorite superhero or monster or something. It really is the audience's night. We'll just be a loud little spectacle in the corner.