The extended and thoughtful intro to “Race For the Prize” hardly prepares the listener for when the band and their 125-person assist fully kicks in. Not surprisingly, the live rendition of the album takes flight when conductor André de Ridder’s 68-piece orchestra and 57-person chorus are fully engaged. That along with an album that was tailor made for symphonic and choral backing. Of course these things don’t just happen, it was the culmination of 30 years of hard work and dedication to their craft that got them there. In the halcyon days of legal weed (in this case May 2016), The Flaming Lips found themselves fronting the Colorado Symphony Orchestra at Red Rocks to perform The Soft Bulletin in its entirety.
Sometimes dreams you can’t even conceive of find their way to your doorstep. As all fledgling bands do, you have plans to make it big but even the most expansionist dreams wouldn’t have encompassed playing your ninth studio album live in the most iconic amphitheater in the country backed by a symphony orchestra and choir.
Maybe to up your psychedelic credibility you have a bubble machine and a light-up rainbow spinner ball to splash a little color across the walls of the ramshackle clubs where you’ve managed to land gigs. Picture yourself in the mid-to-late ‘80s tooling around with your best buddies in a white van with little more than the handful of musical instruments you begged and borrowed for.