As a delicate, dreamy soundscape filled both tiers of a new and extremely packed Birmingham Academy last Tuesday night, a silhouetted dancing girl drenched in phosphorescent hues performed a saucy routine on a massive crescent video screen behind the stage.  It looked like she had no clothes on, but silhouettes often give people that impression.

For several minutes she continued to shimmer psychedelically and sashay suggestively before erupting in a dazzling explosion of light.  As the audience blinked frantically, trying to disperse an unwelcome chorus line of phosphorescent dots and after-images, this coruscating brilliance seemed to contract and coagulate, transforming itself into a misshapen orb of pulsating energy.  This was some otherworldly object that emitted an omnidirectional halo of beatific light, and it seemed to be located in the general vicinity of the dancing silhouette’s unmentionables.

As the audience realised this it let out a cheer, which only seemed to encourage the tie-dyed temptress to up her game and gyrate in even more provocative ways.  As she relaxed into a particularly risqué pose, the camera slowly -- and, it must be said, shamelessly -- zoomed into the pulsating orb of light.  As it brought us closer and closer, the music became more harsh and discordant.  Eventually, the light filled the entire screen…

What was this supposed to mean? Was the dancing silhouette some lurid reimagining of the Myth of Ishtar?  Did the ball of white light represent the svadhisthana chakra and the awakening of the kundalini spirit?  Did it have something to do with the Mayan rebirthing ritual?  Was it a tribute to Russ Meyer?

Before these questions could be answered, a door opened in the middle of the screen and a bunch of guys from Oklahoma City stepped out.  One of them climbed into a giant plastic bubble and proceeded to roll on top of the audience.

There’s nothing quite like a Flaming Lips gig.

The mighty Flaming Lips‘ long-awaited Christmas on Mars film is coming to DVD this autumn. If you’re a Flaming Lips fan then you’ll probably know about this already. If you’re not a Flaming Lips fan, then shame on you.

Heres the trailer:

Over the years I’ve seen many jaw-droppingly odd things happen at gigs. I went to an Eric Clapton concert in 1988 where the person standing directly in front of me spent the night yelling “JESUS! FORGIVE ME! SAVE US FROM OUR SINS!” at Old Mano Lenta. I can only assume he once saw the famous image of the brick wall with the ‘Clapton is God’ graffiti and took it all a bit too literally.

The fact he bore an uncannily resemblance to Rasputin The Mad Monk didn’t help matters. The yelling guy, that is, not Clapton. Clapton looked nothing like Rasputin The Mad Monk, at least not in 1988.

I went to a Flaming Lips gig in Birmingham in 2003 that was brought to a standstill after someone dancing on stage collapsed from heat exhaustion. In and of itself, that may strike you as unfortunate but not particularly odd. What puts the odd meter to the red line and nudges the event into the Realm of the Mentalated was the fact that the collapsee was dressed as a giant panda. Yes, that’s right, a giant panda. As the music stopped and the band’s effortlessly charismatic frontman Wayne Coyne made reassuring noises to the audience, paramedics had to be called to the stage to administer first aid to someone who was Dressed. As. A. Giant. Panda.

Maybe it’s just me, then.

The most recent example took place at the thoroughly awesome Foo Fighters Wembley Stadium gig the other week. Now, I haven’t been to a stadium concert for a l-o-n-g time. The last one was – Jesus Christ on a Pogo-stick! – The Rolling Stones at Maine Road in 1990, so maybe this sort of thing is now de rigeur and as commonplace as Mexican Waves and overpriced drinks. But somehow I doubt it.

Behold, The Plastic Beer Skiff Snake. It’s a snake. It’s made of plastic beer skiffs. It was an impromptu collaborative effort that involved hundreds of people.

Look upon it’s length, ye mighty, and despair: