June 23, 2009 - Touring
Fans who use the Internet to purchase concert tickets to the Flaming Lips' forthcoming U.S. summer tour will receive a sneak peek of the alternative-psychedelic band's new double-album, "Embryonic," scheduled for release later this year on Warner Bros.
The Flaming Lips will perform at a handful of music festivals in Europe, the United States and Japan through mid-August before beginning a brief stateside amphitheater trek. The 10-date stint begins with an appearance at the Del Mar Summer Concert Series near San Diego, and wraps Aug. 30 at the Bank of America Pavilion in Boston.
Concertgoers who buy Flaming Lips tickets online will receive a digital EP with new songs "Convinced of the Hex," "The Impulse" and "Silver Trembling Hands." Those ticket-buyers will also be given three digital B-side tracks that the band members will handpick from its vault of rare material. Additionally, fans will be sent a digital download bootleg of the concert they attended.
Following the online ticket purchase, concertgoers will receive a unique code that leads them back to the Flaming Lips' Web site, where fans can download the music. One code will be sent for each ticket purchased. Since music is involved, concert tickets purchased online will cost about $4 more than buying at them at the box office, according to band representatives.
The ticket promotion does not apply to the band's appearance at the Del Mar Summer Concert Series, according to a news release. Tickets for select shows have already gone on sale.
The Flaming Lips are also schedule to appear at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago on July 19, where the band will perform select songs from its extensive catalog voted on by fans who are attending the festival.
In May, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne spoke to Billboard about the concept of writing a double-album. "Somewhere along the way it occurred to me that we should do a double album," he said. "Just this idea that you can kind of weave a couple of themes into there and you can sort of sprawl a little bit. Our past couple of records we've always had this little dilemma, like how many songs do you put on? How many instruments do you put on? What's the focus?
"And some of my favorite records – thinking Beatles 'White Album,' Zeppelin's 'Physical Graffiti' and even some of the longer things that the Clash have done – part of the reason I like them is that they're not focused. They're kind of like a free-for-all and go everywhere. It's not necessarily because we're prolific, I think we always stay in a sort of
perpetual panic of like we never have more songs than we need and we always wonder if any of them are any good to begin with. I do think we probably work best in a panic, so maybe it's best that I planned it this way."
"Embryonic" follows the Flaming Lips' 2006 effort "At War with the Mystics," which has sold 216,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A specific release date for the new album has not yet been announced.
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