The Flaming Lips pull off COVID-safe show with audience in bubbles

From revolving stages to hazmat suits and puppets, event organisers are coming up with some crafty ways operate in line with COVID-19 restrictions.

But this tactic employed at a Flaming Lips concert in Oklahoma is attention-grabbing, to say the least.

The band and all attendees were protected by inflatable, human-sized bubbles during a performance at the Criterion which, according to CNN, was also a music video shoot.

The concept was first trialled by the band on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in May and was reportedly inspired by a sketch doodled by bands frontman, Wayne Coyne.

“I did a little drawing… where I drew a picture of The Flaming Lips doing a show in 2019. And I’m the only person in the space bubble, and everybody else is just normal,” Coyne told CNN.

“Then (I did another drawing with) The Flaming Lips playing a show in 2020. The exact same scenario, but I’m in a bubble, and so is everybody else.”

He said the drawing was originally supposed to be a social commentary.

“I don’t think anybody would have thought … in the middle of March that this is still going to be going, you know, eight months later,” he said.

“I think we all thought this is a month, this is maybe two months, but we’re going to get a handle on this.”

The bubbles have featured in the Flaming Lips concerts for a while now, so the band was familiar with with the logistics. But including the audience in the act was a stroke of genius.

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Featured image source: YouTube/ The Late Show with Stephen Colbert