Here's where I let the air out of everyone's crowd-surfing, Wayne Coyne–sized bubble: I don't really care for the Flaming Lips.

I have nothing against them. They've never done any harm that I can think of, but they've never left much of an impression on me, either. I'm of the right age to have been fully in the thrall of corporate rock radio and MTV in 1993—I was 13, the Flaming Lips were 10—and so I heard and saw "She Don't Use Jelly" more times than I probably needed to. For a long time, I couldn't remember which band was the Flaming Lips and which band was Tripping Daisy—I'm not sure why. Before that song, the band hadn't existed for me, and for a long time after they continued not to exist.

I remember reading about Zaireeka and the parking lot concerts the band staged and thinking they sounded cool, but at 17, I was pretty committed to music I could sulk to on headphones while walking between classes. Also, we only had the one stereo at home.

So their momentous summer of 2002, in which they toured with Modest Mouse on the Unlimited Sunshine tour (and Cake, but whatevs) and released the breakthrough Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, at least took me by surprise. I had written this band off as a footnote.

Listening to Yoshimi now, though, I'm not sure what the big deal was. There are some good songs ("Flight Test," "Yoshimi," "Do You Realize?"), but it's mostly just vanilla psychedelia and weakly existential soft rock dressed up with (now dated) electronic blips and flutters. It's the kind of album Boredoms drummer Yoshimi P might inspire, but probably not the kind she'd ever make herself.

So, duh, it's the live show. I know, and here's where I let the air out of myself: I've never seen the Flaming Lips live. It just never worked out—either I was too young or I was too broke or I was too busy. So, Lips fans will tell me I don't "get it," that the vanilla psych, weak existentialism, and soft rock become eye-melting, resonant, massive rock in the live setting. Maybe they're right. UFOs at the Zoo—watched over the weekend as part of a crash course in the Lips for this issue—certainly makes a pretty strong case for the grand spectacle of their concerts.

But, their show Thursday, September 20, at the Paramount is sold out, and it's the same night as the Decibel Festival Kick Off/Death of the Party Showcase at Neumo's. So I guess I'll miss the spaceship landing again.

And, really, their brand of spectacle might not be my thing. Daft Punk aside, most of my favorite shows aren't stadium-sized prop-rock. The dancing Santas, the giant hands, the confetti cannons, the balloons, the UFO lighting rigs—all of it just seems to address or distract from the fact that you can't really share a meaningful experience with 5,000 people as part of a big, old-fashioned arena rock show with very little possibility for real contact (unless you're one of the lucky few people onstage in costume, I guess). There could be no better illustration for this than the bubble-encased Coyne himself—he can almost touch the crowd, the crowd can almost touch him, but there's that barrier. I guess it's even worse just watching the show at home on my laptop.

I did go to a show over the weekend that was pretty cool, though on a much smaller, less theatrical scale. On Saturday, September 15, shortly after midnight, Truckasauras played an "acoustic" set in the parking lot across the street from Broken Disco at Chop Suey. Their usual array of drum machines, sequencers, and effects was pared down to just a kid-sized drum kit, a melodica, and a Game Boy run through a battery-powered amp. A couple dozen people hung out, drank beers, and got down. Some dude showed up and rapped over one song. The trio sounded just fine without all the usual gadgets, and it was simply one of the most unexpected and fun live shows I saw all summer (short of, you know, Daft Punk or whatever).