Countdown To VH1's Who Rock Honors: The Flaming Lips Interview, Pt. 5
The VH1 Who Rock Honors special, which premieres Thursday night at 9pm, offers a little something for every sort of Who fan: The Who's Quadrophenia era reinterpreted by Pearl Jam, a full-on arena-rock assault from the Foo Fighters and Incubus, the jokey side of the Who represented by Tenacious D and Adam Sandler...and of course the actual genius of headliners Daltrey and Townshend themselves. But expect the Tommy-medley performance by Oklahoma eccentrics the Flaming Lips to be the most gabbed-about Rock Honors performance around the watercooler come Friday morning.
Sure, the Lips are not the most well-known act on the Who Rock Honors bill, but they're definitely the most over-the-top. Attending one of Lips' own sensory-overloading live shows is like taking a visit to a magical, mystical rock 'n' roll circus, complete with puppets, giant Passenger-style balloons, skeleton costumes, multi-colored disco lights, huge habitrail-like plastic bubbles, frolicking stuffed animals, wailing police sirens, confetti cannons, Chinese gongs, psychedelic video-screen displays, and buckets of fake blood.
A Flaming Lips show is basically like Halloween, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Mardi Gras, all rolled into one giant pop-music celebration. So of course the Lips were handpicked to pay homage to the Who's most outlandish and outrageous era, the Tommy era, at VH1's Who Rock Honors. And, according to the fifth and final installment of lead Lip Wayne Coyne's five-part backstage interview, the Who are "thrilled that they're going for it."
See Wayne speculate as to whether more conservative VH1 viewers will be as thrilled when they watch the chaos unfold on the Who Rock Honors stage Thursday night:
WATCH PART 1 OF WAYNE'S INTERVIEW
