Flaming Lips hold COVID-19 concert with individual plastic bubbles

The Flaming Lips, known for being an experimental, “out there” alt-rock group, have taken it to the next level (again) to face COVID-19.

The band held the first of two socially distanced concerts with audience members encased in individual plastic bubbles at The Criterion in Oklahoma City on Jan. 22.

Footage uploaded to Instagram and other social media sites shows a crowd of people in plastic spheres at the show; each of the bubbles could hold up to three people. Even the band was encapsulated in their own pods.

Each bubble contained a high-frequency supplemental speaker in addition to a water bottle, a fan, a towel, and a sign that read “I gotta go pee/hot in here.”

If the concertgoer had to use the bathroom, a venue employee would guide them to the facilities once they put on a mask. If the bubble got too hot, cool air would be pumped in via a leaf blower.

Audible clapping was achieved by punching the top of your sphere in unison with the rest of the audience.

Lead singer Wayne Coyne, who came up with the idea, held up silver balloons that spelled out “F— you COVID” and “F— yeah Oklahoma City” during the show.

Coyne said this type of isolated show is “safer than going to the grocery store.”

“It’s a very restricted, weird event,” said Coyne to Rolling Stone in December. “But the weirdness is so we can enjoy a concert before putting our families and everybody at risk. I think it’s a bit of a new normal — you might go to a show, you might not, but I think we’re going to be able to work it out.”

The band held a test run for the concerts in October after debuting the idea in a one-song performance for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last June.