Rockness 09: Friday

The Aliens, Main Stage
A half full crowd had gathered to see The Aliens open the main stage. After around 5 minutes of their set it became apparent that only a handful of the crowd were there to specifically see The Aliens, the rest probably to check out what the main stage had to offer and the fantastic view over Loch Ness. The Aliens started off somewhat weakly, and with an overuse of annoying echo effects on the vocals. However around the middle of their set, The Aliens actually become pretty interesting with some cleverly written and pretty catchy songs. Unfortunately, however, this did not las;, The Aliens set became somewhat boring towards the end, and the frontman’s routine of constantly taking on and off his guitar and jacket started to get annoying. An hour set from The Aliens seemed rather lengthy for the material they had, and you cannot help but think as to whether they had been given a slightly shorter half hour set they might have been somewhat more memorable.

Flaming Lips, Main Stage
The Flaming Lips burst onto the stage amidst a snowstorm of confetti. Frontman Wayne Coyne fired streamers over the audience from handheld pipes, as confetti canons covered the field and stage. This grandiose opening set the scene for the rest of the band’s set: at once Coyne climbed into a humongous inflatable hamster ball, flipping and flopping all over the audience, whose outstretched hands carried the singer across the crowd.
After starting with a bang, the middle of the Flaming lips’ set was a quieter, mellower affair. A touching whole-crowd sing-a-long of ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt. 1’ then brought the set back to its rockier stylings, and final two tracks ‘She Don’t Use Jelly’ and ‘Do You Realize??’ went down extremely well .

At various points throughout the show, Coyne rode upon the shoulders of a werewolf whilst debuting a brand new song, and sang through a megaphone which shot out jets of coloured smoke. This was certainly not your usual festival experience. Throughout the set, Teletubbies danced on either side of the stage, and were joined at times by people in inflatable sun and butterfly suits.

Coyne’s charisma shone through during the band’s performance, and this reflected in the audience who lapped up every minute of their over-the-top stadium greatness. Although The Aliens technically opened the festival’s main stage, it was the Flaming Lips who really set the festival alight.


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ES, RT