FAIRFIELD-SUISUN, CALIFORNIA
Bubbles aren’t new to the Flaming Lips. In 2011, singer Wayne Coyne crowd-surfed inside a bubble at The Boulevard Pool at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. Over the weekend, to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, the group performed an Oklahoma City concert in which audience members were inside bubbles too. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images/TNS)
How the Flaming Lips pulled off Covid-distancing space bubble shows
Sonaiya Kelley, Los Angeles Times
The Flaming Lips pulled off their first full-length space bubble concerts this past weekend in Oklahoma City, with both the band and audience members sequestered in their own zip-up bubbles.
After a year of talking about bubbles, US band the Flaming Lips decided bubbles were the only way to perform live. Now, the move could transform gigs in a Covid-19 world.
After a year of talking about bubbles, US band the Flaming Lips decided bubbles were the only way to perform live. Now, the move could transform gigs in a Covid-19 world.
The Flaming Lips pulled off their first full-length space bubble concerts this past weekend in Oklahoma City, with both the band and audience members sequestered in their own zip-up bubbles.
In June, the band debuted the idea with a single-song performance before bubbled onlookers for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. They held another test-run in October, and planned the full-scale pairs of “space bubble” concerts for December, to promote their 2020 album American Head, but they had to be rescheduled due to rising coronavirus case numbers in Oklahoma City.
Careful organisation and meticulous planning ensured that the concerts were “safer than going to the supermarket” according to Coyne, when they finally took place this weekend. The venue floor was divided into a 10-by-10 grid and 100 bubbles were laid out, one in each square. Before the show began, masked attendees were generously spaced out in the large open area surrounding the Criterion’s concert space, as they prepared to be zipped into their bubbles. The whole process took around 45 minutes.