Do You Realise

So my PA chum and I get these free tickets to go and be part of the screaming masses in the audience for the Album Chart Show at Koko in Camden on Monday. Not a bad way to spend a Monday evening, I rationalise, completely forgetting my memo to myself last Monday that this Big Love show looked like it was going to get more interesting. Anyhoo...

So Abby emails me the line up, and tells me that she has a spare ticket. I duly invite Ian, he agrees to come. He then drops out of it at 4pm as he has some work to do that he won't finish in time to get to the show.
The thing with the line-up is that you can only see what'll be on the show and not necessarily what'll be taped on the day you're there, as in our case, the expected Belle & Sebastian show actually being a dodgy 40-year-old man standing on stage urging us to 'give it all you've got' as though we'd just seen a great set. Harrumph.

But it all turned out okay, because they only went and got the FLAMING LIPS INSTEAD!!!

That's right, the FLAMING FRIKKING LIPS were there and they did NOT disappoint! Unfortch we weren't allowed to take pics but they were so phenomenally good - the other bands (Mojave 3 and Orson) looked like such amateurs in comparison. The lead singer had personality practically pouring out of him, he created - in a three song set - an truly awesome experience. Let me tell you, the use of props like enormous foam hands to clap with, people dressed like aliens and Santas and enormous canons that spew tiny bits of coloured paper in the crowd for ten minutes solid while backlit with streams and streams of light should NEVER be considered improper. This confetti and floating and light coupled with music filled with hope for the human race generated such an intense feel-good atmosphere - well at least, it did for me. I stood there, watching people reach up to the light, watching the rain of colour descend toward me and thought: these guys have nailed it.

I may be going overboard or whatever, but I spent the whole day today trying to think of how to impart to friends, colleagues, and you, rockit-readers, just how much of an impact this show made upon me. Adjectives fail; if you EVER get the chance to see The Flaming Lips, snap up the tickets, and make them as close to the stage as possible.