But what is this light? What causes this fathomless freak-out? It is a chemical reaction on a galactic scale. A solar flare erupts and flies through space colliding with Earth’s magnetic field. It makes, for us humans anyway, a spectacular, majestic effect.

We drove down the road and stopped in a small gas station to use the bathroom and get a drink or something. We told the clerk that we had just seen the greatest sight humans had ever seen… The Northern Lights!!! He didn’t seem too impressed. But, he that he had lived there for thirty years and had never seen them… I’ve lived in Oklahoma for forty-six years and have never seen a tornado.

Anyway… Whenever we have these extraordinary sensory overload experiences, perhaps we are not just seeing astounding natural phenomena, but we are also seeing a phenomenon in ourselves. And, if we are lucky, we are changed by the experience. We are shown what great power and mysteries are secretly exploding all around us in the endlessly interesting world. I remember that, for a short while, just after seeing the Northern Lights, I had a feeling that anything was possible. I eventually came to my senses, but I do believe my awareness and my optimism stayed somewhat enlarged… And if not “anything was possible” then certainly more seemed possible than before.

To stand and face The Flaming Lips’ audience is to relive this overdose of energy and new belief. They are an undulating mass of encouragement and acceptance with a willingness to become excited.

We had not playing in Oklahoma City since 2003. That show was one of the high marks of that series of performances, So, upon our return, we felt a certain amount of pressure to really have a bigger avalanche of a presentation but, at the same time, did not want to lose any of the intimacy that the smaller venue (in 2003) afforded us. So, we considered playing the amphitheater at the Zoo with some hesitation. First off, it holds, jam-packed, around ten-thousand people… it can be a bit of a big arena. Secondly, mid-September in Oklahoma is normally a rainy time and the evenings can be quite chilly. Third, there was considerable “local status” anxiety. The Zoo has it’s own prestige for Okies…I had seen, back in the day, Frank Zappa and the Grateful Dead there. Both were legendary shows, but they were in the warm summer sun… this was mid-September, the summer concert series was winding down and we’re always cautious of asking too much of the audience.

We tried to have the U.F.O. light show prepared for our show, earlier that summer, at the Hollywood Bowl, but we had yet to work out all the functional kinks… So, we accidentally unveiled it in out hometown… The Mothership in the Motherland… It could not have been better!!!

So you see “U.F.Os at the Zoo” was not really a creation as much as a happening. For whatever reason, it became the show to be seen at. A good quarter of the audience dressed up in some absurd costume. I saw one woman with her entire body covered in green make-up. There were parties the night previous, parties in the parking lot before the show and parties afterward into the morning. It was a meeting of the wonderful, die-hard, enlightened Flaming Lips fanatics. But, it was also, for many, the first time ever seeing us. My long-time dentist brought his family and staff. And, just after the show, I even received a letter from a woman whose son had recently died of cancer proclaiming how the concert helped her turn the corner on her intense grieving.
But, I will say that we, as The Flaming Lips, can only take so much credit… I believe, as I say at almost every concert (but especially this one), that to be within the audience and participating in this collective triumph of the human spirit can make a person feel… superhuman!!!
The flaming lips audience is a living, breathing aurora borealis. They make themselves into a gargantuan wave of pulsating particles and, if they don’t literally glow, they do… spiritually shine!!! Yes… As impossible and ridiculous as it may seem… I believe they shine with the confidence and presence of human love. Some kind of small explosion happens within each of them, causing an outward eruption of enthusiasm and, what can best be described as, an embracing of life… And it is contagious and spreads very quickly from one to another, each causing an uncontrollable chain reaction… back and forth… energy being reformed. You see… love is a strange, magic fuel that does not diminish. It’s just the opposite… The more it’s burned, the more it grows. And I know this sounds like a bunch of mystical, new age, hippy babble… But I do believe there are some true and healthy lessons in this: Our awareness of how much we benefit from each other, our awareness of how much we can help each other and our awareness of how much we need each other can truly change, if not the way we are, then at least the way we behave.

We are all a collection of combustible chemicals firing into one another. Perhaps, in a sense, we are all solar flares getting ensnarled in each others’ magnetic fields. We have the potential to make a spectacular majestic effect.

Wayne
2007

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