It’s been 20 years since The Flaming Lips released the one-of-a-kind aural hallucination that is The Soft Bulletin. To celebrate the anniversary of its release, The Flaming Lips will play a special show at Brisbane’s Fortitude Music Hall on Saturday 28 September.
Saturday 28 September
Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Monday 30 September & Tuesday 1 October
The Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
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To celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Flaming Lips’ seminal pop album The Soft Bulletin, the Sydney Opera House today announced the psychedelic rock legends will bring their elaborate, technicolour party to the Concert Hall for two nights only on Monday 30 September and Tuesday 1 October.
Monday 30 September & Tuesday 1 October
The Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
Widely regarded as the band’s breakthrough album and hailed as a masterpiece upon arrival, The Soft Bulletin (1999) is a rollercoaster of breathtaking Beach Boys melodies, Zeppelin-level attitude and lush orchestrated sounds that include the indelible singles ‘Waitin’ for a Superman’ and ‘Race for the Prize’.
Celebrated by NME as 1999’s Album of the Year, the Oklahoma odd-balls’ ninth record cemented their position as prog-rock icons and set them up as forefathers of the genre, opening the doors for other esteemed acts including Tame Impala and MGMT. Stereogum says, “it’s hard to imagine [these] acts existing in their present form without this record’s influence. The Soft Bulletin is a world to be explored, and it has continued to beget new galaxies as fellow visionaries discover it.”
Since The Soft Bulletin’s release, The Flaming Lips have created six studio albums – earning them three Grammy Award wins and six nominations – as well as collaborating on a range of records with Opera House alumni Erykah Badu, Tame Impala, Nick Cave, Bon Iver and Henry Rollins. Now returning to Australia after three years, the psych-pop veterans will bring their renowned live show to the Concert Hall stage in their Sydney Opera House debut.
Sydney Opera House Head of Contemporary Music, Ben Marshall, says: “These evenings are the kind of thing music programmers like me can usually only dream of… Considered its era’s Pet Sounds, 20 years ago Oklahoma’s most fearless freaks The Flaming Lips created their masterpiece album, The Soft Bulletin, channeling all their potent sci-fi fetishism and weird psych-rock incandescence into a tightly focused, holistic concept record that was not only sonically brilliant but stunningly accessible and uplifting.
“Marrying celestial melodies, blissful harmonies and polychromatic scales to the deep humanity in visionary showman/ frontman Wayne Coyne’s most personal lyrics to-date on love, loss and the fate of mankind, it’s impossible not to be moved by the beauty of this music. Hearing its multi-dimensional sound delivered in the precise surrounds of the Concert Hall by the Catherine-wheel of spectacle and energy that are The Flaming Lips will make for two absolutely unmissable evenings.”
Known for their wild performances including all sorts of props and effects – from confetti canyons and balloons to neon unicorns – audiences will be swept away by two nights of pure pop perfection and rock ‘n’ roll grandeur as they invite you into their rainbow-soaked universe.