If you've ever seen The Flaming Lips live, you'll be aware that one of the highlights of their show is when frontman Wayne Coyne emerges in a large zorbing bubble and walks out amongst (i.e. on top of) the audience.
It's a bit of a gimmick but nevertheless fun - but with social distancing measures putting a halt to gigs around the world, you'd assume that such a show may not happen for a while - but not if Coyne has anything to do with it.
The musician told website Brooklyn Vegan that the band were planning a concert where the audience themselves were in bubbles, protecting them from their fellow virus-spreading gig-goers.
"I mean, it seems absurd, but we at first were just doing it as not a joke, but just as a kind of funny thing, and now it’s becoming kind of serious and real,” he said. “We’re starting to get ready to do an actual show where, yeah, there’s three people in each of these space bubbles, and we play… we think maybe playing two shows a night, and getting a big audience in there each time.”
The first gig is set to take place in their hometown of Oklahoma City, while Coyne later told JamBase:
"We, the Flaming Lips, already know how to do space bubbles and we know what people do when they’re in the bubbles. The part that we’re trying to get down is what does the crowd do about going to the bathroom and getting drinks?
"We don’t want this to be [a super-spreader event]. We want this to be safe and a great experience. Those are the things the venue is allowing us to set up so we can start to figure out how it will work. The part about playing in the bubble, we already have down. It’s how we get the crowd in and out without cross-contamination that we need to figure out, but they’re giving us a few weeks in this venue to figure it out. We’re thinking this will probably happen after the election."
It'd certainly be a unique experience for all involved. Would you participate in such a gig?
