Race For The Prize

THE FLAMING LIPS – Pyschedelic Eccentrics Impress (Again) With An Eye-And-Ear Catching Spectacle In ANTWERP BELGIUM

Posted on by JL

5 June 2025

Every single time I saw THE FLAMING LIPS perform (about 10 times now) it was a special spectacle, visually and sonically. And the over the years expanding visual attractions that fit the theatrical music perfectly, make every concert, an even more spiritual and unforgettable experience.

Exactly what happened again last Friday in Antwerp, Belgium when the Lips played their magical 2002 album Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in full, followed by a fan favorites set.

The whole bombastic extravaganza includes two huge (plastic) pink robots, massive confetti raining, multi-colored balloons, a lasers-directed light show, gigantic eyeballs, goblins, puppets, an inflatable rainbow and lost of other bedazzling attributes. In the middle of it all, glam & glitter magician Wayne Coyne, conducts the psychedelic rock opera.

He doesn’t stop to encourage the willing audience to scream, scream and just scream.
His keyword is LOVE. “Scream it, c’mon, scream it”. Get the loud picture? I bet you have.

The Lips are all about putting on a carnival-esque, ear-and-eye catching raree-show
filled with orchestral epicness, ecstatic highs and 60s cinematic romanticism where demons and dragons get floored and love conquers all. It’s phenomenally entertaining
and extremely mind-boosting. I only saw happy faces, and adrenaline-elated, dancing people. MAGIC! PURE MAGIC! Come back soon.

The set’s fantastic closer.

Part 1 – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots album in full

Fight Test
One More Robot/Sympathy 3000-21
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2
In the Morning of the Magicians
Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell
Are You a Hypnotist??
It’s Summertime
Do You Realize??
All We Have Is Now
Approaching Pavonis Mons by Balloon (Utopia Planitia)

Part 2

She Don’t Use Jelly
Flowers of Neptune 6
The Spark That Bled
Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung
Waitin’ for a Superman
The Golden Path
(The Chemical Brothers cover)
Riding to Work in the Year 2025 (Your Invisible Now)
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)

Encores

True Love Will Find You in the End
(Daniel Johnston cover)
Race for the Prize


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Instagram – All Albums

All photos by Turn Up The Volume

THE FLAMING LIPS Released Their Magnum Fairy Tale Opus ‘THE SOFT BULLETIN’ 20 Years Ago Today…

Posted on by JL

17 May 2019

The eccentric Oklahoma rockers THE FLAMING LIPS released their magical and supreme longplayer THE SOFT BULLETIN today 20 years ago, on 17 May 1999. It was this unique, otherworldly, colorful, far-out, crazily inventive and kooky gang’s 9th LP.

ROLLING STONE wrote: “The eccentric Oklahoma outfit Flaming Lips serenely release another baffling, winning, neo-psychedelic recording. Densely textured, awkward but somehow melodic, The Soft Bulletin finds these pop oddballs with their poker-faced humor firmly intact… Their music isn’t, how you say, universally accessible, and the weirdness gets same-y, but no one
else has posited a parallel universe in which the Sixties and the Nineties exist simultaneously, allowing for a peculiarly convincing brand of monolithic robotic swirl.” – Full review here.

TURN UP THE VOLUME! says: The Flaming Lips are The Wacky Wizards Of Oz Rock creating
a fairy tale universe with both elves and demons, with good ones and bad ones and other-worldly symphonies that transfer you to a never-never land full of rainbows on record and on stage. The most spectacular live band I ever witnessed.

NME had an recent interview with Wayne Coyne
the maestro of the stellar orchestra. Read it here.

THREE OF THE TOP TRACKS: The Gash / Race For The Prize / Waitin’ For A Superman

– THE GASH –

– RACE FOR THE PRIZE –

– WAITIN’ FOR A SUPERMAN –

ALBUM in full…

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THE FLAMING LIPS:  Website – Facebook – Discography


Illuminating Amsterdam – Nov 2018 (pic by TUTV!)…

TODAY’S YESTERDAY ALBUM – ‘The Soft Bulletin’ – By THE FLAMING LIPS (1999)

Posted on by JL

Remarkable albums from the past…

‘The Soft Bulletin’ by THE FLAMING LIPS
Released: 17 May 1999 / The band’s 9th longplayer

ROLLING STONE wrote: “The eccentric Oklahoma outfit Flaming Lips serenely release another baffling, winning, neo-psychedelic recording. Densely textured, awkward but somehow melodic, The Soft Bulletin finds these pop oddballs with their poker-faced humor firmly intact… Their music isn’t, how you say, universally accessible, and the weirdness gets same-y, but no one
else has posited a parallel universe in which the Sixties and the Nineties exist simultaneously, allowing for a peculiarly convincing brand of monolithic robotic swirl.” – Full review here.

TURN UP THE VOLUME! says: The Flaming Lips are The Wizards Of Oz Rock creating a fairytale universe with both elves and demons, with good ones and bad ones and
other-worldly symphonies that transfer you to a never-never land full of rainbows…

THREE TOP TRACKS: The Gash / Race For The Prize / Waitin’ For A Superman

* THE GASH

* RACE FOR THE PRIZE

* WAITIN’ FOR A SUPERMAN

ALBUM in full…

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THE FLAMING LIPS:  Website – Facebook – Discography


The Wizards Of Oz Rock…

(photo: Turn Up The Volume! Antwerp, Belgium 2017)