The coronavirus pandemic isn’t stopping The Flaming Lips from putting on their signature, outrageous live shows. 

After a number of dummy runs, the Oklahoma psych-rock aliens have announced their first-ever space bubble concert. The band are set to play a hometown show at Oklahoma City’s The Criterion on December 11th. The show will see the venue filled with 100 inflatable hamster balls — which can fit one to three people.

Tickets — there are only 100 available — are set to go on sale Friday, November 13 at 10 AM CT —  “all attendees must sign the waiver before attending the show.”

The “space bubble” has been a staple element of The Flaming Lips live shows for years now, but the pandemic has seen them up the ante.

Over the course of 2020, they’ve performed on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with both the band and a guest audience in their own bubble.

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Last month, the band shot a music video at the Criterion that acted as a test for a large-scale bubble gig — and it looked like a real ball.

During the test performance the band cracked off a rendition of their tracks ‘Brother Eye’ and ‘Assassins Of Youth’— off their most recent album, the excellent American Head. 

In an interview with Brooklyn Vegan frontman Wayne Coyne offered insight into the space bubble concert concept:

“I mean, it seems absurd, but we at first were just doing it as not a joke, but just as a kind of funny thing, and now it’s becoming kind of serious and real,” he explained. “I’m not suggesting the whole world should do it this way. I’m just saying the Flaming Lips can try it this way.”

Check out ‘Assasins of Youth’ by The Flaming Lips:

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