Burning Through Generations: The Flaming Lips

You might say that The Flaming Lips couldn’t belong to any generation besides one in a galaxy far, far away; however, when the band came on stage at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on August 15th, I couldn’t help but feel a connection.
It began with a light show, a naked woman dancing on the large television screen, and then lo and behold, she fell into the birthing position and The Flaming Lips were “born” onto the stage.

It was a strange sight to see Wayne Coyne walk out of a multicolored, digitally projected vagina and into a large, transparent ball, which he then proceeded to walk over the audience with, but these guys started to play music in the 80s, so all that weird stuff was ok to do back then, right? In fact, the hardcore, longtime Lips fans probably loved it, and knew Coyne’s antics because he had performed them at many previous shows. Those people revere The Flaming Lips, but they can’t claim that the band speaks only to their generation.
The fact is that The Flaming Lips, although they seem like a “blast from the past,” have actually collected a devoted fan base of all ages. The band formed in the 80s, but their big hit, “She Don’t Use Jelly,” only came around in 1993, where it was picked up and adored by the Millennials, that darned generation that claims everything my generation grew up with as their own.
So The Flaming Lips have been making waves in different generational pools for a while, and sometimes they seem like they reach as far back as the 60s and 70s, or at least to the musically innovative and psychedelic aspects of those decades. Their concerts are wild shows of color and bizarre costumes, including dancing animals, giant hands, and huge balloons.
Again, that doesn’t mean our generation is incapable of relating to them. When I went to the Del Mar Fairgrounds on August 15, I was overwhelmed. The Lips were melodic and cacophonous, crazy and mellow all at the same time. The hordes of onstage dancers and Coyne’s odd antics were more than enough to keep me entertained, and the music cannot be classified as fitting into a certain time period.
The amount of Millennials at the concert was easily matched by the amount of Transitionals (the tentative name I give to my generation), and everyone enjoyed themselves. The point is that The Flaming Lips, like many other bands, cross generational boundaries with their music.
The band may be revealing an underlying truth about generations by entertaining all of them – every generation looks to the previous and the next generations for guidance. There is a spirit of interconnectedness between generations that specified time periods cannot divide and conquer for just themselves.
If music is a way to breach those time boundaries, then I am a huge supporter of The Flaming Lips for playing it. They may be bizarre, but they help people feel a connection, and that is a feeling that every generation wants to experience.