Photographs by Dakota Arsenault.
“You are dead” were the final words muttered before a series of seizure-inducing strobes went off with the words of his latest album plastered in front of our very eyes. This was after Flying Lotus walked onto a very dark stage to the main theme music to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (composed by Angelo Badalamenti). It was a creepy start, where he asked us if the show wasn’t “past [your] bedtime”. The show began, and he had covered his face in a black mask that had LCD glowing eyes. For the remainder of the show, this massive box on the stage had projected images sprayed all over it, while another screen behind this box had images that correlated with the front. This created a 3-D illusion that made Flying Lotus look like he was in wormholes, the nervous systems of one’s brain, in sex-fueled dreams and even the afterlife itself. We traveled to anywhere our subconscious could take us: To the places we dream, the places we fear and all in between, far or near.
Every song was merged together to create one gigantic song, and the only breaks were when the words Flying Lotus were printed in neon onto the box on stage. These were the kind of interludes Adult Swim would be proud of (the very station that helped bring Flying Lotus to the masses. Thank you oh so dearly, Adult Swim). He was a mad scientist on stage as he interacted with both the visuals and the music itself. He’d mouth parts of vocal lines that weren’t even of his own. He’d pretend to conduct electricity out of his body. He was the crazy eccentric that we meet when we pass away. At one point, he had a light shine up to his face, where he channeled Richard D. James of Aphex Twin fame by giving us a creepy Cheshire-Cat grin with the Kubrick glare. When he first came out, Flying Lotus had both the mask and a full suit. The show went on, and the mask came off. Eventually, the suit jacket came off as well. He slowly converted from a surreally-classy look to becoming a hip hop fashion statement as we gradually came back to Earth. The visuals and song selections worked in the same way, where we were still on a trip, but we were more familiar with our surroundings. His single Never Catch Me was left until the end so we were eased back into reality. Once in a while, when he became his rap alter ego Captain Murphy, Flying Lotus would walk out of the box and march across the stage, shaking hands as he coasted past the crowd.
“Drake is in the house!” he exclaimed as the venue erupted with cheers. He then said that we only cared if Drake was actually there. Flying Lotus seemed annoyed from the middle of the set until the end, but it could have been an act. “Y’know, it’s funny?” he said while laughing. He continued to say that he didn’t have to be drunk to know that it was funny (it being, perhaps, how he felt the show was going). He insisted that he was just going to keep performing as if he was creating music in his room as he let the next song erupt with some uneasy projections on screen. Maybe he was trying to make the room feel nervous and on edge, which would work well with the set up that was currently in play. He asked for some water before he started to rap, and he quickly said that he was fine to go ahead without some “fucking water”; His temper seemed short. He again joked that another rapper was about to join him on stage, this time it was Earl Sweatshirt. He commented on how the people of Montreal booed him when he mentioned that he was going to play in Toronto, and he laughed when he admitted that he “knew this would piss [you] off”.
When Thundercat came on stage to join in on a few songs, Flying Lotus said that Toronto was “finally awake”. He commented on how the front row of people were the only people really with the show. However, with all of these comments, he had a wide grin for a large portion of the show. Maybe I’ll never know how Flying Lotus felt that night. All I know is a perspective given to me from one of the final songs of the night The Protest: “We will live on forever and ever”. If he was actually upset, life will go on. If he wasn’t, it’s a story of confusion we have to tell. At the end of the show, Flying Lotus tossed out packages to the front row of people that consisted of special “You’re Dead!” rolling papers and filter strips as he shook our hands again. Maybe the often repeated phrase that night was a way of saying that we were successfully duped as we weren’t truly being alive. If we were, we would have just gone with the flow and not questioned any of his unusual antics. Either way, Flying Lotus’s You’re Dead! Tour is a smashing success that is an absolute trip into the subconscious and the stars (or heavens) above.
