Winds end Flaming Lips performance at Tulsa music festival

The Flaming Lips make weather at concerts.

It's expected to see the Oklahoma City-based band raining a truckload of confetti on fans during every show.

Oklahoma weather had a different idea on Saturday evening.

A few hours before the Flaming Lips took stage, heavy winds and rain pushed through downtown Tulsa and ended the Brady District Block Party several hours early. The music festival hosted Primus, Mutemath, the Flaming Lips and several other acts. Around 6:30 p.m., crowds of concertgoers were replaced with Tulsa firefighters, ambulances and police.

The event became dangerous when the Flaming Lips’ lighting rig fell down and struck audio equipment and instruments. No one was injured in the accident.

Luckily, the stage crew anticipated problems with the lighting rig after the wind started blowing over food tents within the concert grounds. Minutes before the lighting rig collapsed, event coordinators were clearing the stage.

“What’s everybody’s 20?” one man shouted. “Get off of the stage now.”

After the lights fell, Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne rushed onstage to secure equipment. When he wasn’t documenting the wreckage with his cellphone, he assisted his crew and helped lift soaked gear out of the way before the storm worsened.

“The Oklahoma wind and rain was a little bit more unpredictable than we had hoped, and we had a bad gust,” Coyne said. “The whole thing is shambolic and a bit dangerous and we’re working to get as much off of the stage before we get hit with the second wave.”

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