But this being live and being kind of obnoxiously angelic or something is amazing." The Flaming Lips perform "The Soft Bulletin" live in 2016 at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado, with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. It's not that present on the album 'Soft Bulletin' that we made there was little bits of choir. That part of it makes it so special 'cause when we were there, I think that surprised everybody how cool that was and how it just sent chills up your spine to hear that element of it. so we were very relieved that we captured the audience being insane and we captured the choir being insane. And we didn't realize that until we got the recordings back and started to kind of listen. It's like this triumphant, religious experience almost 'cause they're so powerful on the thing. "My nervousness about it and my worry about it, I really think turned into the greatest thing about it, because you could really hear this insane choir blaring. when you're standing right there," Coyne said. You're kind of like 'oh, my gosh, this is pretty great,' 'cause it's just a sound that's hard to describe because you're in the middle of it, and it's different. The very first couple of times you go through songs, luckily, you're not having to perform and all that. "The people that were involved in the Denver symphony, these people know our music, probably better than we do. Fortunately, the band had rehearsals to acclimate to the experience of hearing their music performed by a vast group of musicians in new orchestral arrangements. Wayne Coyne is the frontman for The Flaming Lips Īlthough the Lips had previously worked with orchestras, including in OKC, Coyne said the band had never collaborated with a symphony to the extent of the live project. And then to think you're gonna do all this, do a performance, do it with an orchestra and you're gonna record it is like, 'Oh my gosh.' I can't believe we actually pulled it off,'" he said. And then it's a particularly tall order to go to Denver, rehearse with an orchestra doing this kind of complicated music. So, it's a tall order just to do a performance there, without an orchestra. It's such a phenomenal place to be that though they do good great concerts and though the Beatles have played there and Jimi Hendrix has played there and I think even Igor Stravinsky even conducted a symphony there, it's such an insane venue that people just like to be there anyway. "It's a venue where people really from all over the world travel to Red Rocks and don't really even care who's playing. But it was never like a live album where you're just listening to the music." And of course, obviously, there's sound and stuff with it. "The other things that we released were like DVDs, so it would be a concert where it's really about the video. "We have things out there but never an absolute live album it's always been accompanied with stuff," the band's frontman said in a phone interview last week from his OKC home. Live Lips: OKC-based art-rockers The Flaming Lips release their first live album, revisiting 'The Soft Bulletin' with the Colorado SymphonyĪny Flaming Lips fans surprised that the Oklahoma City-based experimental rockers are just releasing their first official live album, take heart: Wayne Coyne finds it hard to believe, too. Īn abbreviated version of this story appears in Friday's Weekend Life section of The Oklahoman. The album was the band’s breakthrough moment and featured the hit singles “Race For The Prize” and “Waitin’ for a Superman”.The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne performs "The Soft Bulletin" live in 2016 at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado, with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. The resulting live album is being released to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Soft Bulletin, originally released in 1999. This entire concert was produced by The Flaming Lips, Scott Booker and their long-time collaborator Dave Fridmann. The Flaming Lips performed the 12-track album in its original sequence with new arrangements for each song that use the orchestra and chorus to great effect. The performance was conducted by the internationally celebrated conductor Andre de Ridder. The Flaming Lips (Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd, Michael Ivins, Derek Brown, Jake Ingalls, Matt Kirksey and Nicholas Ley) were accompanied by a 69-piece orchestra and 56-strong Chorus. On The Flaming Lips performed their classic album The Soft Bulletin in its entirety with the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado.