The Flaming Lips celebrate the death of 2025 with opener Bartees Strange on New Years Eve at The Anthem on Wednesday, Dec. 31.
Formed in Oklahoma City, OK, in 1983, The Flaming Lips have since become one of the most iconic, influential, unpredictable, and vital forces in American alternative rock music. The band has garnered three GRAMMY Awards, a Tony nomination, and an RIAA Gold-certified Record for Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Q Magazine named them one of the “50 Bands to See Before You Die.”
Anchored today by frontman Wayne Coyne and multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd, the band broke through with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin and 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, both critically acclaimed for their lush arrangements and off-kilter pop melodies.
Watch the official music video for “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt. 1” by The Flaming Lips on YouTube:
Coyne has been recognized for works of art that graced many LIPS album covers along with his traveling art exhibit “The King’s Mouth,” an audiovisual art installation that has been featured in many contemporary art museums around the US.
The Flaming Lips’ latest LP, Where the Viaduct Looms, is a 2021 collaboration between The Flaming Lips and teenage singer Nell Smith, recasting nine Nick Cave songs as dreamy, psychedelic torch pieces. Produced and arranged by the Lips, the album grew out of Smith’s superfan connection with Wayne Coyne and showcases her haunting, clear-eyed vocals against the band’s lush, otherworldly soundscapes.
After a combination of 23 studio recordings, numerous singles, 11 compilations, 11 EPs, and 11 self-released experimental collaborative oddities released in various forms, quantities and unique mediums, The Flaming Lips remain in a creative apex that has no bounds. To that end, they have become an American Treasure and created a genre all to themselves.
Bartees Strange is an English-born, Oklahoma-raised, Baltimore-based indie rocker and producer whose shape-shifting songs blend punk, hip-hop, and emo with soulful vocals. A former DC communications pro, he’s released acclaimed albums Live Forever, Farm to Table and 2025’s Horror. He remains a DC staple although he doesn’t live here anymore!
What a way to celebrate a new year and the death of 2025!
The Flaming Lips
W/ Bartees Strange
The Anthem
Wednesday, Dec. 31
Doors @ 8pm
$90.95 GA
All ages
