Rock in a bubble: inside the Flaming Lips’ strange, Covid-safe concert

Thanks to the coronavirus, there has been much talk of bubbles over the past year – for households, for child support, for international cricket teams. But this weekend in Oklahoma City, local rock band the Flaming Lips pioneered an entirely new kind of Covid-safe bubble, to the delight of music fans the world over. Welcome to the future of live music – at least until the vaccine roll-out is complete.

In a pair of concerts held at the Criterion, one of the city’s largest music venues, over the weekend, each for about 200 fans, both the audiences and the band enjoyed the show from within the confines of plastic, oxygenated “space bubbles”. Each one is high enough for a tall man to comfortably stand up in and wide enough to hold up to three people.

The bubbles represent individual covid-secure biosphere, meaning the audience can be safely packed together in front of the stage, creating the impression of an (almost) normal crowd, albeit that each person or small group was separated from the next by a rainbow-sheened dome of soft plastic.

At one point in Sunday night’s show, as confetti rained down from above, it looked for all the world like the band was performing to a deranged convention of snow globes. Enormous balloons emblazoned with the words “F--- You Covid” added to the sense of occasion.

The genesis of the bizarre and innovative idea came from the Flaming Lips’ frontman Wayne Coyne, who has a habit of crowd surfing in just such an inflatable plastic sphere. “I don’t want anybody to think this is some kind of f______ freak party,” he told Rolling Stone in December. “I think it’s a bit of a new normal.”

In June, the band debuted the idea with a single-song performance before bubbled onlookers for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. They held another test-run in October, and planned the full-scale pairs of “space bubble” concerts for December, to promote their 2020 album American Head, but they had to be rescheduled due to rising coronavirus case numbers in Oklahoma City.

Careful organisation and meticulous planning ensured that the concerts were “safer than going to the supermarket” according to Coyne, when they finally took place this weekend. The venue floor was divided into a 10-by-10 grid and 100 bubbles were laid out, one in each square. Before the show began, masked attendees were generously spaced out in the large open area surrounding the Criterion’s concert space, as they prepared to be zipped into their bubbles. The whole process took around 45 minutes.

Once safely inside, the bubbles are pumped with enough oxygen to supply three people for just over an hour. Each one is equipped with a pair of high-frequency speakers for each concert goer to wear around their neck – to counteract the muffled effect on sound caused by the layers of plastic – a battery-operated fan for the heat, a bottle of a water, and a towel to wipe down the condensation that builds up on the inside of the bubble.

There’s also an “I have to pee” sign, to summon an attendant to let you out of the bubble and escort you to the bathroom, which feels a bit unpleasantly reminiscent of public exams. The other side of the sign says “It’s hot in here”, which prompts an attendant to refresh the bubble with new, cool air. At the end of the gig, the audience were instructed to remain with their bubbles and roll them through the exit, only unzipping once safely outside in the fresh air.

Judging by the outpourings on social media, not even the slightly undignified toilet arrangements could overcome fans’ joy at being back at a live performance. Non locals called on the band to tour the show around the country, and wondered why the format had not yet been adopted by other artists. However, some observers were less impressed with proceedings. “Cool, but no concert at all would be most responsible” commented one under one of Coyne’s Instagram posts. “Can you smoke inside?” wondered another.