Many music fans may dream of being onstage with their favorite bands, but it rarely goes beyond that. For fans of the Flaming Lips, however, the dream has proved more attainable.

For Matt Perkins, the idea first hatched back in 2008, when he saw the Flaming Lips perform at the now-defunct 10,000 Lakes Music Festival. "I remembered how much fun it was to watch other people dance around in Teletubby costumes and just thought it looked like a ton of fun," Perkins recalls.

Fast-forward to the summer of 2011, and Perkins — the former marketing manager at The Current — was headed to a music festival in Somerset, Wis., along with The Current hosts Jill Riley and Jade. Perkins' vision from a few years prior had not left his mind. "We made a point going into that weekend that we were going to try and figure out one way or another how to get onstage," he says.

"Our main mission, from the start," Jade concurs, "was that we wanted to get onstage with the Flaming Lips. We kept saying: We have to make this happen."

Riley and Jade interviewed Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne at the festival, but Jade acknowledges the professional context of an interview was not the time to ask Coyne how to join him onstage. Meanwhile, Perkins had met the Flaming Lips' tour manager — and the group's luck was about to change. "The guy was like, 'OK, meet me at the side of the stage at five o'clock'," Perkins says. "There was roll call for all the people they had granted this pass to go dress up and dance onstage during the concert."

"It sounded very sketchy," Jade laughs, "but we were like, 'All right — we'll do it.'"

On national TV

For Brian Stack, an experience to be onstage with the Flaming Lips presented itself in 2002. Stack, an actor and writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, had previously spent 17 years as part of Conan O'Brien's team. When the Flaming Lips visited the NBC studios of Late Night on Halloween of '02, Stack and his castmates were already in costume for a comedy sketch. "I had big, huge tusk-like horns and full all over me," Stack recalls, "and my friend Gary Wilmes, another actor, was dressed up like a werewolf."

The costumes delighted the Flaming Lips. "They said, 'Hey, why don't you guys just jump in and pretend to be part of the band?'," Stack says. "We were very happy to do that."

An organized production

Back in Wisconsin, Perkins, Riley and Jade discovered that the Flaming Lips operation wasn't questionable at all; in fact, it was a well-oiled machine. "All of us were handed these costumes that were Wizard of Oz themed," Jade says. "There was Tin Man, there were Lions, and I was Dorothy — they had a bunch of Dorothy costumes.

"They just had racks and racks of clothes," Jade continues. "It's like, 'Are you tall? You have to take this costume.' 'Short? You take this one.' You can tell that they do this at every stop, because they were like, 'We have our system.'"

Before the show, the dancers were treated to something extra special. Each person was given a Flaming Lips t-shirt as a memento of the show — and then Wayne Coyne and the rest of the band came in to meet the dancers to sign autographs and to share a bit of conversation. "We got all our stuff signed," Jade explains. "You get a t-shirt so you can keep the t-shirt but give the costume back. It's something to take home to know you were a part of it."

Perkins was impressed by the interactions with the band backstage. "Wayne and the rest of the band were total sweethearts," he says. "The fact they take time to do that and create that memorable experience is pretty incredible. I think it's a testament to who they are as a band and who they are as people to share that experience with their fans."

Going Onstage

Over at NBC on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, the backstage experience naturally differed from a festival. Because it was Halloween and a national television production, the costumes were well in hand. As the Flaming Lips were preparing to perform their song, "Do You Realize?", Wayne Coyne was dressed as a pirate when he approached the furry-monster-costumed Brian Stack. "He said, 'Why don't you just come out as the monster and play a washboard or something?'," Stack says. "So I just scratched my claws on a washboard and kind of jumped around. Gary Wilmes — the werewolf — was playing a triangle."

At the festival in Somerset, Jade estimates the total number of dancers at approximately 45. Somewhere during the second song in the set, all the dancers were directed to go up onstage. "I did not realize this," Jade says, "but Wayne Coyne and the Flaming Lips put on a very long show. A very long show … but it went by so fast because we were onstage and [were] so caught up in the immersive nature of it."

"We were out there for the entire show," Perkins says, "to the very finish through the encore. It was two hours of nonstop movement and dancing and euphoria and energy and just loudness standing next to the speakers and being onstage. It's a moment you won't forget."

On Late Night, everyone seemed to get into the onstage performance in whatever way they could. "Jon Glazer, one of our other writers — this really cracked me up — he came out and just pretended to play bass in his street clothes," Stack remembers, "but he didn't actually play bass, just tuned the bass the whole time.

"It was kind of funny, too," Stack continues, "because Conan came up at the end and said — barely audibly, but it ended up making it onto the air because I don't think our audio engineers caught it — he was laughing and he said to Glazer, 'You're an a*****e.'"

The Experience

Unanimously, those who got to be onstage with the Flaming Lips describe a euphoric experience. "It's the most immersive, intense way to be at a show," Jade says. "I'm not a musician; I don't really go onstage and perform in front of people, but to have that elation of the people in the crowd screaming, that almost rock star moment … I get why people say it's a rush to be onstage, that's so exciting, you get caught up in the feeling of it."

Perkins's feelings are similar. "Seeing what the band sees," he says, "and also getting a front row into watching the band a few feet away — I can't describe that feeling and that amount of energy culminating with everyone being right there in the moment. It totally felt like a dream."

And even though Stack is accustomed to performing on a soundstage every weeknight, the Flaming Lips experience was different. "The spirit of the band was coming out to the audience in such a joyful way," he says. "It was a very special experience for me, having never been in a band, just to be part of this wonderful wall of sound coming out to the audience, even though we were just in little Studio 6A, we were still performing for a live audience. It was just a very special experience just to be part of it for even a few minutes."

The magic of Wayne Coyne

The fact that the Wisconsin dancers were dolled up in Wizard of Oz costumes seems perfectly apropos to Perkins. "I think Wayne himself kind of feels like the man behind the curtain," he says, "the wizard behind the curtain, if you will: he's pulling strings, he's commanding incredible live experience not only for his bandmates as the conductor, but for the show he's putting on for the audience. In a weird metaphorical way, I think the Wizard of Oz is pretty fitting for him. He is a wizard!"

Stack came away with a similar feeling. "Wayne Coyne was such a lovely guy," Stack says. "He seemed — and I mean this in the best way — kind of of like a big kid himself. … he really does seem to appreciate every moment, and it's really inspiring to be around somebody like that."

"That memory is going to last forever for me," Perkins says. "It was truly magical."

External Link

The Flaming Lips - official site

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