I love Newbury Comics. They always have the latest and the greatest CDs and DVDs right out front and usually on sale too! Imagine my delight as I saw the latest concert from Wayne Coyne and company a.k.a. The Flaming Lips. UFO's at the Zoo - The Legendary Concert in Oklahoma City is the newest DVD release by the band, and it features a full length concert chock full of great songs by The Flaming Lips.

Packaging

At first glance, this looks like a CD because it is in a CD size cardboard case, but it is in fact a DVD featuring extra interactive content if you play it in a DVD Rom drive.

Press Play

The concert begins with some creative animation of UFO's picking up animals at the zoo, then changes to the Flaming Lips stage. A giant UFO lands on the stage and the band members get out, Steven Drodz, Michael Ivins and Kliph Scurlock. Wayne Coyne then emerges from the top of the space ship in a giant plastic bubble. He rolls down a ramp in the bubble and then goes out into the crowd. When he finally returns, he emerges from the bubble and the band breaks into Race for the Prize and Free Radicals. After some banter, the band performs one of my favorite songs Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots parts 1 & 2. A group of women sing along on one side of the stage, and a group of Santa Clauses sing along on the opposite side of the stage. The Flaming Lips are always interesting. Giant inflatable balls float around the audience and the stage. The bands amplifiers are all painted bright blue with an orange and yellow stripe painted across them , similar to the packaging for Yoshima Battles the Pink Robots.

We get an impromptu tour of the zoo next, the whole concert is mixed with the actual concert and backstage footage. Wayne poses with seals and parakeets.

Vein of Stars / The Firebird Suite was performed after Wayne Coyne discussed letting all the animals in the zoo free.

The concert breaks again to interview fans of the band at the show and a hot dog eating contest. Blurs were used to blot out some peoples faces or in some cases just logos on T-Shirts. It was distracting and strange. Finally, The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Song was performed and The Spark that Bled. On Yeah Yeah, Wayne Coyne had the audience participate as loudly as they could.

Preparation of the ship for the show was shown. It was rather interesting. Wayne Coyne practiced his descent in the ball. The W.A.N.D. and My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion was next. Smoke filled the stage and was soon joined by confetti. Coyne shouted the song thru a huge voice altering megaphone.

More backstage stuff was interspersed before the next big song. One of the roadies explained his job at the show, like preparing all the Santa Suits and recruiting audience members to be Santas or Alien girls to dance on stage with the Flaming Lips. Talk about audience participation!

Two more of my favorite songs came next, the early Flaming Lips hit She don't use Jelly and the later Do You Realize

The final two songs were A Spoonful Weighs a Ton and Love yer Brain then the spaceship departed.

I would have preferred that the concert portion of the DVD was separate from the backstage stuff, it interrupts the flow of the show.

Audio Quality

No complaints here, the show is in PCM stereo or Dolby Digital Surround Sound, and the sound was excellent. Even the downloadable MP3s of all the songs were encoded at 256 kps.

Video Quality

Although the show was filmed in widescreen, it didn't seem to have that high definition pop of some recent concerts. I don't know what the show was filmed on, but it wasn't high definition video or film. Video was very good, but not excellent. Cinematography was a riot, some shots were close ups of Wayne Coynes face in fish eye view singing the songs and a multitude of odd angles. The audience was shown and with the Flaming Lips the audience really are part of the show, not just the Alien girls and Santa Clauses on stage, but the whole crowd.

Extra Stuff

This is n MVI disc, which means that all the tracks are also downloadable as MP3s for use on your computer or MP3 player. Most DVDs cannot be ripped into MP3s, so I was pleased with this, and added the concert to my hard drive. There was also an application to make any tune into a ring tone for your cell phone.

Summary

My few minor complaints are well outweighed by a great show by a great band and lots of great extras. The Flaming Lips seem like one of the funnest bands around today, and I had fun watching this show. This is another five star offering by The Flaming Lips yeah yeah yeah

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Hanging With Friends