Gig played on 23/7/06

Los Angeles is the city that many love to hate. And true, with its earthquakes, race riots, Malibu mudslides, cancer-causing smog, and pretty plastic people, the world-infamous City Of Fallen Angels has become an all-too-easy target. But here's a message to all you smug L.A. haters out there: When was the last time you spent a balmy 25-degree summer evening in a private theatre box, feasting on sheep's-milk brie and chilled shrimp gazpacho, while watching the almighty Flaming Lips perform a set of cosmic pop in the acoustically perfect Hollywood Bowl?

Because that's exactly what your Yahoo! correspondent is doing tonight, and after such an experience, this writer can assure all you anti-L.A. naysayers that reports of this town's supposed demise have been greatly exaggerated. Yes, Disneyland may only be an hour's drive away (OK, two hours, in typical gridlocked L.A. traffic), but tonight the Hollywood Bowl is most definitely the Happiest Place On Earth. In fact, about half of 18,000 spectators here seem to be giddy children, all of whom are gazing at the Lips' master-of-ceremonies, Wayne Coyne, with the type of all-consuming adoration usually reserved for Mickey Mouse himself.

Unfortunately, these tots are in for a letdown that will likely last the rest of their gig-going lives, when they eventually discover that most rock concerts don't feature confetti cannons, body-painted showgirls passing out complimentary glowsticks, backing dancers dressed in Santa suits (for a real Christmas-in-July effect), giant "Prisoner"-style balloons, or a frontman rolling around in an enormous clear plastic bubble like a happy hamster in an enormous plastic bubble. But until that rude awakening arrives, the kiddies at the Bowl keep waving their glowsticks, their picnicking parents keep nibbling on their gourmet cheese, and The Lips keep the good times rolling.

Since the band is recording tonight's rock 'n' roll circus for a live DVD ("So make as much f*cking huge noise as you can!" Wayne orders, not bothering to clean up his language for impressionable underage audience members), they pull out all the stops in their effort to entertain young and old alike (the trusty nun puppet during "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots", a strap-on dry-ice machine for "The WAND", and Wayne's best Midnite Vultures-era Beck falsetto on the Prince-ly "Free Radicals").

However, they still get all serious for the encore, as Wayne smears his once-smiling face in gooey fake blood while caterwauling Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" in front of a video-screen montage of evil-doers Dick Cheney, George Bush and Colin Powell. Sure, it's a potent moment, but it's not exactly the most upbeat way to conclude what was up until now the feelgood show of the year. Yet as the families and fans exit the Bowl - their hair strewn with confetti, necks looped with those bendy glowsticks, eyes shining and ears ringing - there's little doubt that this has been the ultimate L.A. evening.

by Lyndsey Parker