Last Friday’s Flaming Lips show started off strong, with the band members leaping forth from a close-up shot of a pulsating, neon vagina-esque orifice on the band’s enormous visualizer screen. Then, Coyne got into his giant hamster ball and rolled around on top of the crowd a little before hopping back onstage to sing. Which is just business as usual for the Flaming Lips, a band whose live shows are a consistently surreal, joyful experience. It’s easy to believe “Bad Days” when you’re outside on a nice summer day at Marymoor, it’s raining orange and blue confetti that catches the light just so, and every single person in the audience is singing along and batting big red, yellow, white and orange balloons back and forth across the teeming mass of people. And of course, there were costumed dancers on stage: white furry cat-like creatures, a giant gorilla, a caterpillar wearing a crown and a catfish in a sailor suit…it’s like living in the best acid trip ever for 90 minutes. It makes sense that you’d want to commit such a spectacle to DVD. Unlike most concerts, there’s actually something to see. If only Coyne had been recorded unawares, things might’ve gone just fine. As it was, the best part of the show ended as soon as Coyne told us we were being recorded. Which meant that people who wanted to hear the hits were in luck. Unfortunately, it also meant that Coyne — in his gray suit and dapper pink pirate blouse — felt inexplicably compelled to stop singing every other line if he felt the crowd wasn’t singing along loud enough, or if he wanted us to scream louder for the benefit of the recording. Then he’d sing a few more lines and stop again. It would’ve been forgivable once or twice. But it kept happening, over and over again — during “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” during “Do You Realize?” (the show’s closer), during “She Uses Jelly”…in fact, Coyne’s desperate pleas for more crowd participation interrupted almost every single fucking song they played. The only song that was sacred, apparently, was “Taps,” which the band has played at every show, and a song they will continue to play until the troops come home. That, at least, was sacred. Everything else? Not so. And by the end of the show, the euphoria I’d felt during the first ten minutes of the concert had all but evaporated. I’ve written show reviews in which I’ve decried how unenthusiastic and lame Seattle crowds can be (to be fair to Seattle, though, hipster crowds are usually lame everywhere). But that particular brand of ennui has no place at a Flaming Lips show, and I can say with certainty that we were all genuinely, visibly excited. We were making a lot of noise already, before Coyne prompted us to do so. I mean, the dude behind me — who was wearing a tie-died shirt, and who I am fairly certain was on a lot of mushrooms — screamed “WHOOOOOOO!” every thirty seconds out of sheer elation. But being wheedled every five seconds to make noise ruined what should have been — and has been every other time I’ve seen this band — a euphoric experience. Even mushroom guy sounded a little less amped as the show wore on. The songs were still wonderful. But they would’ve been better if the Flaming Lips has been as concerned about putting on a good show as they were about making a good DVD. The really sad part is that — unless they’ve got a team of geniuses editing this thing — they ultimately failed at both. If it wasn’t enjoyable listening to a guy sing songs that are interrupted every other sentence by forced screaming in person, it won’t be enjoyable as an audio file, either. I love you, Flaming Lips. But next time, please leave the recording equipment at home. We’ll all have a better time.