Earth Day on the Mall 2009
The Flaming Lips headlined the Earth Day festival on the National Mall this past weekend, so I packed up the camera bag and off I went. I'd wanted to see them perform live for ages, and they did not disappoint, to say the least. The Capitol Building in the background provided a nice surreal touch to what's in all likelihood the most postmodern rock concert experience available. Wayne Coyne, merry prankster extraordinaire, came out onstage with the giant hands on, surfed the crowd in a plastic bubble, and at some point, he was playing a crazy looking double-guitar, where the bottom guitar was some sort of modified "Guitar Hero" device. I have no idea how he played it--or even if he really was, for that matter. (Judge for yourself in the 3rd picture...) Highlights included an intense, gong-banging cover of Madonna's "Borderline" and the encore (and new official state rock song of Oklahoma) "Do You Realize?"
Other bands on the bill included Los Lobos (who encored with their incredible rendition of the Grateful Dead song "Bertha") and moe. It was fairly crowded, and of course there were plenty of college girls in hippie skirts with hula hoops. Because what would a neo-hippie gathering be without hula hoops? Or the secretary of labor, for that matter? It was like a mini-Coachella, with a lot more policy wonks and a lot less music, the kind of festival where every speaker loudly proclaimed "I am a member of the Green Generation!" despite actually being members of different generations, and the rare event where people could wander in and out of the Smithsonian during the long gaps between musical acts.
Labels: Earth Day
posted by Aaron M. Cohen at 8:18 PM
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