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♪"Segue Music Pre The Terror"
by The Flaming Lips♪

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♪"Race For The
Prize" (Live Version)♪

Seems like we're good to go.

I'm going to go ahead
and take off my mask...

get this started.

♪"Space Bible" by
The Flaming Lips♪

So let's go back to the year
2000 and we as the Flaming Lips,

we set the agenda.

The thing we're going to start
to do is start to make this

absurd, surreal,
sci-fi Christmas movie.

It ends up being
called 'Christmas on Mars.'

I think we started to make
the movie because Steven and I

wanted to make the
soundtrack to a movie,

so we just made up a movie
that it was going to be about.

At the very beginning of
this conceptualizing about what

scenes we were going to
shoot, in the very beginning,

I had this...

the character that I
play in the movie,

I'm this alien superbeing...

and I'm arriving on-- it's not

really Mars, but I
come onto the scene.

My spaceship is a
shaped like a bubble.

♪"The Horrors of Isolation"
by The Flaming Lips♪

We start to look
for a big, round,

clear, probably
inflatable bubble.

It was around
2003 or four--

you know, late
2003/early 2004--

when Wayne came
to me and wanted

me to help him find a
bubble to purchase, and

I kinda of was like, "Okay."

Back then, the Internet
wasn't what it is today,

but you could still do a search
and find lots of great stuff.

But as much as we
looked and searched,

at the time, we
couldn't find anything.

And I kept thinking about this
scene that I wanted to shoot,

so we ended up just doing the
scene using computer animation.

We didn't end up needing the
space bubble to make the movie,

but lo and behold about a
year and a half later...

Wayne calls me up and
says, "I found the bubble."

It was this place in Italy,
and I started talking to him.

It was this guy named Charles,
and it turns out he actually

lived in Oklahoma at one point,
and he was the guy who owned

this plastic company that
made these "water balls,"

which is what they called them.

The idea was that you're
supposed to get in the ball,

get in a swimming
pool, and walk on water.

So the space bubble,
just one space bubble,

shows up and it just happens
to be a few days before we are

going out to play the
big Coachella festival.

I don't remember
the time exactly,

but I do remember showing up for
work on a suburban Edmond Street

in a suburb of Oklahoma City.

I remember Wayne came
over and we blew it up.

He brought a leaf blower and we
blew it up in our front yard,

and he walked down the street
with all the neighbors looking

out.

I think they always
knew we were weird,

but after that
they knew for sure.

We didn't know what
was going to happen.

We didn't know if we were going
to walk on one little rock and

the whole thing would pop.

We had no idea.

You have to keep in mind this
is a giant American festival,

and they've got lots of
stagehands and lots of

insurance, and they're very
worried about everything going

according to plan.

And we as the Flaming Lips,
we're pretty used to people

saying, "No, you can't do that."

So we collectively decided
that we wouldn't tell anybody,

we wouldn't say
anything about it.

And we're about to
start to do our first song,

and there's a usual panic
and a lot of calamity at these

festivals.

It's a lot of people setting
up, and nobody really seems to

notice, and I just get in the
space bubble and we blow it up,

and before you know it the band
goes into the first song and I

just jump out on
top of the crowd.

Sort of to our
relief and surprise,

nobody stops me.

That is awesome!

No, no, no!

Hey Michael, we're going!

At the time, it
was such an exhilarating,

embarrassing, adrenaline-filled
moment because you just don't

know what's going to happen.

You don't know if the stagehands
are going to stop you,

if they're going to be mad
and stop the whole show,

or if the audience is going
to grab it and tear it apart.

It's all just so
nerve-wracking, so you just go.

I remember a big
issue at Coachella was,

once he rolled into the crowd,
would he be able to get back?

My biggest worry was Wayne
was going to be out there in the

middle of the audience and
someone was going to hit it with

a cigarette.

And in my head,
it's like a balloon.

The air just goes, it collapses,
and Wayne just sinks into the

audience.

And I was holding a Bowie knife,
and I had this knife in my hand

thinking I was going to have to
jump into the audience and cut

Wayne out of this
deflated bubble.

Part of me thought, "It
might just really work,

and it might be
utterly fantastic," and

so you take that chance.

I get in it, and I do my best
to walk on top of the audience,

but I can't really
walk on top of them.

I take a step or
two and fall over,

and I get back up as best I can.

But when I'm walking, I do try
to look relaxed and elegant as

though I do this all the time,
even though it was the very

first time.

It almost immediately
became this iconic image.

They take these fantastical
things that you make up when

you're just sitting around
with your friends and saying,

"Wouldn't it be
funny if we did this?"

And they're the only people
who actually go and do it.

There was a cover
story in Newsweek.

Donald Rumsfeld
was on the cover,

but there was something
about music festivals.

And inside of Newsweek
there was a two-page spread,

and the photo was of Wayne on
the audience at Coachella in his

bubble.

It has just started to be
embraced and it started to

become a thing that we would do.

It started to become a thing
that the audience expected us to

do.

If that's 2004 when we
did that at Coachella,

you fast-forward,
that's 16 years...

♪"When We Die When We're
High" by The Flaming Lips♪

I would do it often
enough, not every night,

but virtually every night.

Singing a different song,
sometimes coming out in the

middle of the set.

But it's a long
time to be doing this,

and doing it in a panic and
figuring out how long it takes

for the space bubble to blow
up, and how to work the zipper

mechanism, and how to
get in and out of it,

and how much air
would be in there,

and how long you
could be in there,

and how it would sound if
you're singing in there.

There's no way, or there'd be
really no reason that you would

want to know or bother to know
these things unless you had done

it as often as we had.

So, I think just by virtue of us
having those this silly gag as

part of our show every night,
we really became the world's

experts on these space bubbles.

♪Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Pt. 1 by The Flaming Lips♪

♪"Powerless" by
The Flaming Lips♪

On the very day that
we went into lockdown,

I did this little drawing
that was meant to be a little

commentary of our times.

It's not necessarily a political
cartoon but something like that,

that I just posted
on my Instagram.

And I think everybody
thought it was funny and clever.

I'm not even sure if
people realize that I drew it.

And really, for me that was
all that the little drawing was

intended to be.

In my mind, when I
first saw the sketch,

I thought, "That's a
pretty neat thing."

And then the next thought was I
wonder if he's actually thinking

"We're all at home,
we're not touring,

nobody is going anywhere, I
wondered what's going to happen

next."

And then a week later I got
the call that we're going to try

to actually turn
this into a thing.

When I saw the drawing,
I thought it was cool,

and I thought that would be
cool if we could do that,

but there's no way
we could do that.

I would be crazy if I said we
weren't all worried in our own

ways and wondering what was
going on or how it was going to

be safe, but at the same time
it's with a group of people that

you put your safety in
their hands all the time.

We're used to this, we take care
of each other on the road all

the time, so if anybody was
going to do it or if I was going

to trust anybody to
do it, it would be us.

And that was pretty
early, getting together.

I missed being able to be
around our gang and our friends

and get to do stuff and play.

So even though it was difficult,
I was excited that we were going

to get to do something.

I thought "Oh shit, he's
really going to do that."

I was more scared of how much
work this was going to be and

what are other people
going to think of it?

Are they going to think
we're being reckless,

or not care about
the serious situation?

But I knew that we did care, and
we were just as worried if not

more worried than
everybody else.

He would find a
way to do it safely,

but it sounded pretty hard.

At the beginning of the first
couple of weeks of the lockdown,

all the late-night talk shows
were scrambling a little bit to

figure out what they were
going to do about having musical

guests.

And the Stephen
Colbert show talent buyer,

he was hinting around about
maybe we could do one of these

at home concerts with these
space bubbles like he'd seen in

my Instagram.

I was hinting
around at that too,

wondering, "Hey do you
think that we could do this?"

We start to set out
to do this very first,

this very limited,
this very cautious,

this very stripped down
at home concert song.

So, we asked everybody in our
family and all of our friends

that we think would be up to
this to come down and help us.

We even asked the
mayor of Oklahoma City.

My first thought is: nobody is
doing anything at this point.

Nobody is gathering.

People aren't even having
meals with their parents.

♪Turning Violent by
The Flaming Lips♪

It did feel good that we were
going to be doing something,

anything, and we
were going to be on TV,

and we were getting together
again because we hadn't gotten

together as a band.

When the idea for the
Colbert thing first came up,

I was certainly nervous.

Not against the
idea, just nervous.

My wife has got some
pretty severe asthma,

and that was pretty
early on into the pandemic.

It was probably only two months
in and there was so much we

didn't know.

Again, I knew it
was going to be cool.

And we took it seriously and I
didn't feel like it was unsafe.

I felt like it went as
well as it could have.

♪Race for the Prize
by the Flaming Lips♪

If you look
closely in the video,

I'm right front and
center bouncing up and down.

I felt that was my obligation.

It's kind of hard to
show energy at a concert,

through a bubble.

But I took that role seriously.

That was the first night of
performing with people in the

bubbles.
That was really weird.

I felt a disconnect there.
You know?

I usually don't seek out
the validation on Instagram or

whatever, but I
kind of needed it.

Everybody sees it on TV, and
we got the feeling whether you

loved it or
whether you hated it,

everybody sort of
reacted like, well,

this is already a concert.

And I can understand where they
would think that because most of

the at home concerts would
literally be one or two people

sitting on the couch in their
living room where this was a

whole group and
we're on a stage.

And we have people though,
everybody's in the space bubble,

we have an
audience and all that.

So, I think it went out into the
world as the Flaming Lips are

putting on concerts
inside these bubbles.

And even though we knew it
was really just one song.

It was very quick and
haphazard or whatever,

we started to get maybe an idea
that as people were getting more

weary of the pandemic and there
seemed to be more and more of a

desire for someone to figure
out how can we do concerts?

And everybody was thinking, we'd
already figured out this way to

do concerts, even though we
hadn't really figured it out.

It appeared that we did from the
video that played on the Stephen

Colbert Show.

The bubbles were a gimmick, but
they are actually a protection

from transmission.

♪"Flowers of Neptune 6" (Live
Version) by The Flaming Lips♪

♪"Segue Music Pre the
Terror" by The Flaming Lips♪

So, we're in a circle of
friends and we're in this sort

of community that's in the
spirit of well we want to do

something and we want to help.

I guess it was about June when
we realized this is going to be

long-term, for a while.

And it took a while to kind
of wrap your head around that.

The healthcare system
in the United States,

the way it is, hospitals
can't just have all that gear,

all that equipment, just in
stock and storage because of the

cost.

So all of a sudden, we're used
to having maybe a few patients a

month on the vent and then the
demand goes up just like it did

with every other product.

The toilet paper,
Clorox, whatever,

masks, we didn't have.

Everybody was trying to
scramble to get equipment.

Some good friends of ours have
a tech company and they were

making ventilators from sourced
parts that you could get here

the US when the
ventilators from China,

no one could get them and there
was a big shortage up in New

York.

They also made, I don't
know if it ever got into being

manufactured, but they made a
great digital soap dispenser

that counted down
the 20 seconds.

Remember everybody washing
their hands for 20 seconds.

You couldn't even buy masks.

My wife was hand
sewing our masks,

her company, Wicked
Hippie was making handmade,

homemade hand sanitizer.

Of course, they put
some glitter in it.

You have to remember Trump is
in office and part of you feels

like he is incapable
of doing something.

You don't believe that he's
going to do anything to help you

anyway, so you sort of feel
like you're in this on your own.

And yet our mayor in
Oklahoma City was very active.

He was out,
involved in everything.

For all those reasons
here in Oklahoma City,

we acted really fast.

I mean, we closed
bars, restaurants,

music venues, hair salons, two
days after our first case of

local spread.

That was that probably wasn't
done in New York for a month

after their first
case of local spread.

Our drummer was in
the unemployment line,

these giant unemployment lines
that were on the news every day.

Yeah.

I mean, it was weeks of dealing
with it and getting out there

early and trying to get in line
and it was going to be too long,

or we weren't going to
be able to get a voucher.

You know, when I first heard
that these lines were forming,

it's just something that I
had to see for myself because

honestly, I haven't seen
anything like that outside of a

history book and seeing
the lines during the great

depression of people
waiting for food and relief.

I made a little video of me
walking through this line and it

took a good five to 10 minutes
for me just to walk from one end

of the line to the other.

We knew people that were at the
ground zero of the violence and

the protests in the
Black Lives Matter movement.

So we were very
inspired by them.

I didn't feel like not
doing anything for sure.

I felt motivated
to do something.

When you are a creator of
something in a community,

I feel like you become extra
invested in that community,

right?

Because if you're successful
in creating that thing or you

choose some kind of
definition of success,

it's because the
community has come behind you.

That's how I feel
about this store.

That in November, 2019, we
opened our doors and several

members of the
community embraced us.

Well, when COVID happened and
then the protests following the

George Floyd murder and Trump
coming here and all of those

things, I mean, we
couldn't just say,

"Well, I'm not going
to do anything now,

because this is too much."

The protest happened
outside of our shop,

right here on
Archer and Greenwood.

There were a lot of sneaker
stores that were getting broken

into all over the country.

And when word came out that
Trump was going to come here,

I remember that was one
of my biggest fears was,

"Oh my gosh, if there's
violence, if there's chaos,

something is going to
happen to this store.

We're right here on Greenwood.

We are a target, because of what
we represent in terms of Black

success, Black wealth."

I made the decision though
that I wasn't going to run away.

I wasn't going to board my
windows like some businesses

were, I was going to stand here.

I was going to open my doors
and I was going to operate.

I don't think we ever thought
we were the only ones doing

something like this.

I think we thought any
minute, there would be 10,

20 other bands doing
something in their own way.

To me, the real panic is when
Wayne came over and was talking

to me about it and
said, "Let's do this."

And then I agree.

That's when the panic kicks in.

Well, we end up making the
decision to order the space

bubbles.

We're looking ahead a bit in
time thinking about promoters

and thinking
about these concerts,

these venues, and even the
people that work at the venues

and our own Flaming Lips
road crew and thinking,

well, what can we do?

Is there a way that we can make
some kind of concerts happen and

they can get back to work,
and they can make some money?

And we can all
contribute to helping this.

We had to make kind of a leap
of faith in ourselves to make

that purchase of a
hundred bubbles.

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess when I found out
that Wayne was actually buying a

hundred space bubbles,
it made it all real, you know?

It seemed like an
idea for a long time.

It's cool to talk about
doing a concert that way,

but there's a lot of things that
you don't think about or that

you don't want to think about.

Like, are people going to die
that now you have to think about

because the
bubbles are in the mail.

♪"Are You a Hypnotist?"
by The Flaming Lips♪

Stop!

We are still promoting a
record that's yet to come out.

So, the American Head album
isn't going to come out 'til

September 11th, but there's a
lot of things that you start to

get ready for when
albums come out.

So, we started to get asked
if we can do shows and so we do

this great NPR show, the Tiny
Desk show and we're actually in

the space bubbles, but we're
just in our studio and this is

starting to show us how we can
really play instruments and how

we can really set up things,
because we're doing multiple

songs now.

It's not just one
song and it's a panic.

I have to do a little, a
little speech here real quick.

You've got to get
out of the frame, sorry.

Now we're starting
to do multiple songs.

And I think in a way, all that
is coming as a little bit of

relief, because it is so
difficult to do just a normal

concert without being in space
bubbles and the audience not

being in space bubbles.

So this is starting to give us
a little bit of hint of like,

could we actually do,
when we say a concert,

could we actually do
90 to 100 minute sets?

Is any of that possible?

So being able to set up in our
studio and to play and sing and

have all those mechanisms
kind of go where if you mess up,

you can try it again,
you can try it again.

I think all that helped us.

Then I think not too
many days after that,

we were doing the same thing
for The Jimmy Fallon Show.

All right, D, it's
going to be a little awkward.

Be careful when
you're crawling in.

♪drumming♪

We're playing, but the stakes
aren't as high because it's just

us in our studio.

There's a lot of questions to
everybody that would see this in

the news or see a picture of it.

I think your
immediate reaction is,

"Well, how long can you stay in
one of these before it runs out

of breathable oxygen?"
And I think all those are

great questions.

And I only know
because I've done it a lot.

We decided that we
would see just how long.

We were thinking it
could be up to three people.

And just how long could three
people be in one of these space

bubbles and not feel like
it's going to run out of air.

We kept them in there and I
think we stopped after about...

It's just short of two hours.

So it's something like what
would be a 90 minute set,

but there's some time to get in
the space bubbles and some time

to get out.

♪"Feeling Yourself Disintegrate"
by The Flaming Lips♪

♪"Segue Music Pre the
Terror" by The Flaming Lips♪

So, we take a very guarded
family trip out to Los Angeles,

and it's mostly just to see
the sights along the way,

but also to take Baby Bloom to
the ocean for the first time.

And while I'm in Los Angeles, I
bum rush Marc Maron to

be a guest on his show.

Now Marc and I, we've been
texting back and forth for

really years.

And in the months
leading up to this,

I probably texted him 100 times,
but I still got the feeling when

I was there, he
wasn't quite sure,

like, "Why are you here?"

But he pulled it together
and he had me on his show.

I have 100 hundred of these
space bubbles that I go in over

the crowd.

Yeah.
100 of them?

100 of them
on the way to my house.

Where do you store them?

Well, they're on
the way to my house now.

Okay.

They just got
manufactured in China.

Okay.

And they're
on the way to my house,

hopefully in the
next couple of days.

I saw the sketch.
Is this the concert idea?

The space bubbles arrive
like we thought they would.

They arrive at my house on, I
think it's a big UPS truck.

It's the entire truck.

And Michael and I unload the 100
space bubbles right there into

my yard.

And then within the
next couple of hours,

we just take them down to the
Criterion and start to set up

what we now know is this giant
grid that worked for all of the

shows.

♪Flowers of Neptune 6
by The Flaming Lips♪

♪Segue Music Pre the
Terror by The Flaming Lips♪

All right, everybody.

Now I want you to know that
this is a music video shoot.

This is a music video shoot.

So we decide to do another
music video for the song,

this time for the song
"Assassins of Youth."

♪"Assassins of Youth"
by The Flaming Lips♪

But it's also a practice run
for us to see just how quickly

can we blow up these
100 space bubbles.

Because you can see where, if
it takes you an hour to do them

all, people are just not
going to tolerate that.

So we see how quickly
we can blow them up.

It's also an opportunity for us
to see how it's going to sound

inside the space bubble.
We don't really know.

It's one thing to
stand in there.

It's another thing to be 10
rows back inside a space bubble.

It's an opportunity for us to
see how long the audience will

want to be in the space bubble,
if they'll actually enjoy it,

or by the end of this 20 minutes
that they're going to be in

there, are they all hating it
and not even wanting to tolerate

it for 20 minutes.

♪Assassins of Youth
by The Flaming Lips♪

So it's an opportunity for
us to learn a lot about it.

Everybody is...

We've figured out a way to
make everybody absolutely safe,

and now we're starting to figure
out a way to see if they can

actually enjoy the concert.

We want to know if it gets
too hot in the space bubbles,

we want to know what do we do if
people have to use the bathroom?

Now for this particular shoot,
no one had to use the bathroom.

So we didn't learn that much.

It all goes great, and we
put it out into the world,

and the video looks
and sounds spectacular.

I think there's a part of
everybody knows it's a video,

but then it goes
out into the world,

and people, once again,
think it's an actual concert.

♪"There Should Be Unicorns"
by The Flaming Lips♪

♪"Segue Music Pre the
Terror" by The Flaming Lips♪

Once
inside the space bubble,

you can remove your mask.

But please remember--

We've got all this momentum and
we're feeling confident about

it, but we quickly
approach this moment of truth.

We'll announce a show, and we'll
have to put tickets on sale.

And though up until then, it
would feel like there's a lot of

excitement about
what we're doing,

and there's literally no
other shows happening.

And so part of you
feels like, "Well,

everybody will
want to come to this,"

but you really don't know.

And it really was a
stressful moment.

We put the first show on sale,
and it seems to sell out in

about 30 seconds.

It sells out so quickly that we
think there's something has gone

wrong with the system.

And so, we're
panicking like, oh,

something is messed up.

Part of us is relieved,
we think it's sold out.

But part of us is confused
because we don't know it's if

right or not.

But after 10 or 20
minutes, we realize,

"Oh, this concert is sold out."

So, we regroup about midday
and we decide that we'll add a

second show.
So bam, second show is added.

And that one sells out
in about 45 seconds.

And so the whole thing
seems like this is...

It's spectacular.

It seems like there's
a big demand for this.

But then as the
following weeks go,

I think for the first time
since the pandemic started,

the numbers start to
get pretty alarming.

Yeah.

We had more people die in
Oklahoma City in the two weeks

after Thanksgiving
than died in March,

April, May, June combined.

And actually, I believe that was
right leading into the original

dates for the
space bubble concert.

I think in our minds it
was always a little bit like,

well, we're going
to announce them.

And of course, in these times I
think the audience and everybody

would understand if we needed to
change the dates or postpone it.

So a couple of weeks goes by,
and we decide then that we'll

postpone those shows.

And we didn't really know
when would be a good time,

but we hinted around let's
wait till later in the new year.

So we decide
those are postponed,

and we look into the future
and somehow try to predict that

whatever the COVID numbers are
after Thanksgiving and after

Christmas, maybe two weeks
or so after the new year,

maybe would be a safe time to
do these first two space bubble

shows.

So we announced that
they're going to be in 2021,

and we'll do them on January...

I think it's
January 10th and 11th.

The 22nd.

Oh, there you go.

So we announced that the shows
are going to be in the new year,

in 2021.

And we announced that it's going
to be January 21st and 22nd.

22nd and 23rd.

We do this all the time.

So no, so it's
January 22nd and 23rd.

There you go.

And I think Scott was smart for
picking the days of January 22nd

and the 23rd of 2021.

bubble inflating]

Every year we bring Santa into
the hospital for kids to visit.

We try to normalize the hospital
experience as much as we can.

And so I contacted
Wayne and I said,

"I have this crazy idea.

How about we put
Santa in a space bubble?"

And he was all over it quickly.

The space bubble allowed us to
be able to bring Santa to our

patients, to our
families, and to our staff.

That made it just such
a memorable experience.

Yeah.

So I got my positive COVID
test back on Christmas Day.

And then we had a quarantine
from Christmas Day until New

Year's Day.
And it sucked, it was horrible.

I was as sick as I'd been
since I was a little kid.

I had a terrible fever and was
waking up in the middle of the

night, sweating.

We got COVID because we were
around one person for a day that

had it, and yeah.
And it was no fun, for sure.

Well, the phone call
was the scariest part.

It was I'm sorry to inform you
that you've tested positive.

You're like...

It was freaky.

Anyway, after the phone
call, then it's just,

I got to keep Wayne safe.

I've got to keep Bloom safe.

I've got to keep my mom safe.

So we figured out all the ways
to run a household with the mom

being separated from the family.

And it was around Christmas.

That wasn't fun.

♪"She Don't Use Jelly"
by The Flaming Lips♪

Oh, my God!

Hold on!

I made it!

At the end
of the concert everyone will,

while still inside
the space bubble,

roll their space
bubble to the exit door.

Once outside the venue, you can
unzip your space bubble and get

out.

So we are still very concerned
about what the audience will do

in this immediate, these
immediate moments after we're

done playing the show.

Because we don't really want
them to just unzip the bubble,

letting out all of this
potentially COVID contaminated

air into a room, and
everybody just jump out in it.

So we decide that they will exit
the venue while they're still

inside their space bubble.

And we think at first that
they're just going to go out the

front door like they came in,
but the front doors are too

small.

So we end up using the doors
in the back of The Criterion,

the big equipment, loading
and equipment in and out doors.

And these doors just happen, by
a strange coincidence which I

didn't even remember, these
doors just happened to open up

onto Flaming Lips Alley.

So in 2007, this
became Flaming Lips Alley.

But 13 years ago, we
actually started a school,

the Academy of Contemporary
Music with The University of

Central Oklahoma, just
down a block this way.

Can't wait to see if
some big guys would come help us

straighten it out.

But right now, 400 yards away
from here on Flaming Lips Alley

is the venue where we did
all the space bubble shows,

The Criterion.

All the way
down as far as you can,

you already got
your mask on for me, okay?

You're going to get out, and
you're going to put your blue

speaker in that box.

There should be a trash
down there for you okay?

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to take my
mask off for this.

All right.

I'm mixing the sanitizing juice,
fog juice every night that we

clean it out, making sure
that we're at the right pH.

♪"Turning Violent" by
The Flaming Lips♪

Sanitizing each and every
bubble as we go every night,

making sure that we reload
everything the proper way.

Let's see, we've done
seven of these now,

and I've tested
negative seven times in a row.

So if anybody was going to get,
it it'd probably be me who was

in contact with every single
one of these bubbles and every

single person, but in testament
to how safe this actually is,

I'm good. Yeah.

So right now, what
we're sitting in here,

each bubble weighs 23 pounds.

So with over 100 bubbles, we
have a metric ton of bubble-age

here, if you will.

Every night after
the show's over,

we have to clean
these and sanitize them,

getting ready, nice and safe,
for everybody the next day.

So after we sanitize and we come
back to clean just the outside

of them, we came up with this.
Did some quick math here.

I'll let you see what me and my
friend Pete Winslow came up with

here.

The area of a sphere is equal
to four times pie times radius

squared.

So these are six and
a half foot bubbles,

which comes out to be 126
square feet per bubble.

Keep that in mind whenever
you come to the bubble shows,

that you have 126 square
feet inside of each bubble.

It's good size.

Times 100 is 12.600 square feet.

And if you think about it, when
you're cleaning out the outside,

if you have a one foot
swath, wax on wax off,

to clean the entire outside of
every bubble is a two mile wipe

down.

So from your house to probably
the closest McDonald's is the

distance it takes to wipe down
all the bubbles for the show and

get them ready and nice and
clean for you for the next night

when you come in.

It's deadly serious, but that
doesn't mean we still can't have

fun while we're doing it.

My family, we lost a couple of
people around the end of last

year because of COVID.

This was my dad's
brother and his mother.

We lost both of them
within two weeks of each other.

We're all getting tested.

We're all getting
vaccinated at this point.

Yeah, we're doing the
best we can to make it safe.

And I feel a lot
safer as time went on.

So there's still these
details that you can't quite...

When you're
thinking in the abstract,

you can't quite figure out
what they're going to be.

So we decide that
the line for the...

we're going to have the audience
line up outside in the socially

distant rows.

And once we know that
everybody is in line,

Zach would go out, and he would
escort each row into the venue,

into their space bubbles, get
one row in and then go get the

next one.

And we've done some work with
radio and headphones before,

so we've worked out that the
sound inside the space bubbles

is this little
speaker that you wear.

It enhances the sound that's on
the outside and it makes it so

you can hear the
high end on the inside.

We have a radio
transmitter on the stage,

which is sending a stereo signal
out to all these portable FM

speaker systems
that you're carrying,

putting around your neck,
inside the space bubble.

Once inside the space
bubble, you will see and hear

your in bubble high frequency
supplement speaker.

The blue dots should
face out like this.

There is a battery operated fan
that is yours to use and keep.

There is a bottle of water with
the Flaming Lips space bubble

commemorative concert
logo insignia on it.

There's a towel to wipe down
the condensation buildup on the

inside of your space bubble.

There is a sign to show the
attendance that you have to pee,

and they will assist you getting
out and getting back in your

space bubble.

The other side of the
sign says it's hot in here.

Show this to the attendant and
they will refresh your space

bubble with new cool air.

♪"Original Score" by
the Flaming Lips♪

♪drumming♪

So the shows, they go, they
go better than we would've ever

hoped that they could go.

They just go
utterly spectacular.

And there's even a slightly
impromptu wedding proposal,

which is something
that The Flaming Lips do.

We don't do it at every show,
but we do wedding proposals

quite often.
We're used to doing them.

We've never done one
in the space bubble.

Erin and Jesse are in
bubble number three

in the ninth row there.

He gets down on one knee, and
from the way it looks on the

video screen, she is at
first kind of confused,

and despite not being able to
hear very well there's leaf

blowers and no one can
really tell what's going on,

it seems to go pretty good.

And at the very end of it...

She says, "Yes."

And there's a great
"Yeah, we did it."

He was more fascinated with
the confetti that was out in the

crowd.

It was just get one
piece of confetti,

he was good.

He'd just gather
on the whole time.

Do people think Wayne's crazy?

I'm sure they do.

Yeah, but he is so not...

So safe.
So cautious.

Doesn't take drugs.

Doesn't...

any mind-altering substance.

Just wants to be in control,
wants everybody to be safe.

And everybody who
knows him knows that.

So the concert goes good, but
we're still very concerned as

the next weeks go.

Are we going to find out in
two or three weeks that say 10

people that were at the
shows now have tested positive.

And this has turned
out to be a bad idea.

By the time
January rolled around,

the numbers were actually
starting to stabilize and come

down a little bit.

Half of you is very concerned
that you've done this horrible

thing and that we should stop.

And half of you is moving
forward at the same time.

So we're in this two mindsets
overtaking you at the same time.

Maybe that was part of the
stress was knowing a lot of

people have traveled
a long ways for this.

A lot of people have paid a lot
of money and that weighs heavily

on me too.

Well, I think that the
very first show is definitely

frightening because you don't
know how the crowd is going to

move and react to instruction.

And after nights
would progress,

zippers on bubbles are breaking.

And so I'm talking to Zac about
those kinds of things every

night.

And he trying to gauge how
stressed or worried he is and

that'll inform how
worried I should be.

In a dystopian
sense of normalcy,

something that was safe for
people who like our music and

who are fans of ours to come
and actually do something...

Without knowing what has
happened at the January shows,

we decide to announce the shows
and we put the shows up for

sale.

We do two shows at one time, the
March 12th and 13th shows, bam!

Those shows sell out in
a matter of a minute.

And we quickly add
two more shows to that.

So we add-- bam!

We add the-- bam!

We add the 11th and
the 14th and those...

maybe that's too many
"bams" at this point.

We are starting to
think ahead a little bit.

So we go ahead and put on the
very next weekend shows and we

start with March 19th
and the 20th and-- bam!

And those sell out.

And, and without
giving it too much thought,

we had a show for
that Sunday, and-- bam!

It sells out as well.

♪"All We Have Is Now"
by The Flaming Lips♪

I think the reason I'm a
musician or an artist at all is

because I can't really stay
focused on the same thing for

too long.

So if it gets too
comfortable, it sucks anyway.

So for us, it was
a great challenge.

At first it was
sort of like, oh man,

okay, we're not going to
be able to hear each other,

or are the drums
going to sound like shit?

Like all these sorts of things
and these these questions.

Doing nothing didn't really
seem like an option for us.

I mean, I don't think we're the
type of group that's going to

just sit around and
wait for things to happen.

And I was happy to
be doing something,

but playing drums in a
bubble is a struggle.

So it was hard to figure
out what was stressing me out.

But I guess it was just the
dystopian things about it.

You're hearing all these fans
and motors going constantly.

And just after a while, you're
not seeing people's mouths.

And so you're not picking up
on people's moods very well.

We did it I think as
much for us and our sanity.

Like, I used to say, there
are three stages of how you

experience your own performance.

There's first level.

Your equipment's fucking up.

You're fucking up.

And it's just the
worst fucking thing ever.

Number two is
nothing's going wrong.

You're really not able to just
really enjoy it because you're

too nervous, even though
nothing wrong is happening.

And then the top tier is
everything is working.

You're not
worried about anything.

Everybody loves it.
And it sounds great.

And you're just
able to enjoy it.

And whenever you
get one of those,

you're like, "ha!"

I felt like it was safer to
take him to the space bubble

show than it was even to take
him to the grocery store where

he is touching the cart and
touching everything else.

So, it was his fun COVID outing.

♪drums♪

I think our live show was
getting better and better as we

went.

That was like peak people
were playing at their best.

The sound man's got it...

as good as it's going to get.

I think for me personally, I
burn out and I come back and

then I burn out.

I want to make music really
bad for a while and I make that

music and we do stuff together
and then we get done with them,

I'm like I can watch TV
for a couple of weeks here.

I'm good.

I was feeling so sick last
night after the vaccine...

I was just like...

feeling all the weird symptoms.

So we do these first nine
shows, and though they're very

stressful and
they're exhausting,

it really does go better and
better each night that we go and

the audience gets better, and
the audience gets louder and

it's more amazing
and more amazing.

And from what we can tell,
there's not one single case of

COVID that's been transmitted
at the shows and it's just going

better than ever.

And so we decide to
add this last show.

We think it's going to be the
last show that we're going to do

on April 20th.

It's going to be a show where
we play the entire American Head

album.

We're so proud that we
get to play for you.

I think you've shown such a
great example to everyone around

the world of how...

This is how we could do it.

There's lots of people who
would say wouldn't it be funny

to have a whole concert
where everybody's in a bubble?

And, of course, Wayne took that
and made a cartoon out of it

early on in the pandemic.

But I think it's just so typical
and magical of Wayne Coyne and

the Flaming Lips.

Part of us feels optimistic and
a little strange about it that

by the time we play
this show on April 20th,

the pandemic might even be over
and maybe there wouldn't be any

need to be inside space bubbles.

But as we know now, that
didn't prove to be that true.

And so even at the end
of the very last show,

all things
connected with COVID-19,

and this year of the pandemic,
you don't really know when it's

over and when is the end.

♪"Do You Realize??"
by the Flaming Lips♪

♪"Original Score" by
The Flaming Lips♪