My favorite thing to ask people right now is “Been to any good shows lately?” They usually answer with “Tis the season!” somewhere in there. What they’re talking about is concert season. Music lovers will usually go to more than one show a week, hitting up venues in Lawrence and Kansas City on weekdays in addition to weekends.

My “big name concert season” wrapped up this week with the Flaming Lips. I call it my “big name concert season” because it’s the one time of year where I see more nationally-recognized bands than local acts.

The biggest downside to this show was having to go to Sandstone. Ugh, the dreaded Sandstone. How UNcool. This usually draws the lamest of all crowds to a show (and it did), but I liked these bands so much that I couldn’t resist.

The first thing we noticed off the bat was a certain stench in the air. The show had barely started and kids were already wolfing down what the husband joked had to be leftover food from the Renaissance Festival.

The next thing we noticed was that we had become the oddball geezers. Wait a second, since when does showing up to a show in t-shirt and jeans make you the oddball? The kids were in all sorts of attire: spotted leopard tights, tutus, fairy wings and even costumes (ranging from spongebob to a fuzzy pink gorilla). The costumes I can understand, though. I mean, this IS a Flaming Lips show after all.

By the time we quit grumbling about the kids on our lawn, White Rabbits took the stage.

I’ll admit, I was a little snobby. I didn’t want to like them, but I came around. They shot for big sound with multiple drummers, but won me over by making good use of that creepy piano sound.

They were also pretty good at getting the crowd in a good mood, granted most of them were drunkenly dancing like Sim characters. This made for great entertainment.

The crowd hadn’t gotten much bigger by the time Minus the Bear took the stage. I don’t like the band (sshh! don’t tell anyone!). But they were good to their fans and played some new stuff off the upcoming album.

When they finished up, someone onstage announced the winners of VIP passes for The Offspring, and everybody booed at the mention of the band. Maybe the younger generation isn’t lost after all?

The crowd actually confused me. Half of them were pretty easy going, and the other half were spoiled hipsters as far as the eye could see. They were rude, bored and pushy. It was bitchy white kids everywhere, and they had all come to see their king: Jack White.

The Dead Weather is Jack White’s new band, and it was everything you could come to expect of Jack White. When you think about it, he’s the ultimate bitchy white kid, popping out of his drummer’s seat at the end of every song and pouting about the stage. I both loved and hated it at the same time.

Jack White didn’t have to try too hard, though. Because his lead singer charmed the pants off of everybody. All the little Kansas kids wanted to be/date her. She (like the rest of the band) donned the tightest jeans in the world and a black leather jacket. Whoops! Watch out! She just spit on you! So hardcore.

Interesting side note: While the band was a sweaty mess of leather jackets, their roadies were clean, well kept and didn’t have a single wrinkle in their suits. Seriously, that’s what they wore. Black suits with bright blue ties (you can see one of them off to the side in the big photo above). I heard someone in the crowd refer to them as “the Jack White Mafia.”

The band rocked hard (really hard) and wowed the crowd.

Then The Flaming Lips came out and schooled everybody about rock and roll.

The last time I saw the Flaming Lips was in 2008 at Wakarusa. That was one of the most epic shows I’d ever seen. There was definitely some love between the crowd and the band. You could tell. It was everywhere, and it was magical.

The crowd Friday night, however, was awful. The band tried very hard to engage the audience, but like I said before, these were bitchy white kids. They were bored and didn’t care. Some even had their backs to the stage, and talked about themselves during the show (and these were kids who were in the front row). Needless to say, I was very disappointed with a lot of the crowd.

But the show was awesome! I mean just look at these hands!!

You think that’s cool? Well guess what else he did with those. LAZERS shot out of them! THIS is what came out of the band that called the audience “stoned out wierdos” at one point (don’t worry, they meant it in a loving way).

You can’t help but fall in love with a show that starts like this:

During the slow/acoustic rendition of “She Don’t Use Jelly” the audience started clapping along. Wayne Coyne stopped and said “Don’t do the clap, it’ll f*#k me up.” Everybody (both on and offstage) started giggling, and he started over. I felt that memorable moment broke whatever tension was there.

So despite my distaste for the crowd, I couldn’t help but leave the show feeling fulfilled. The band knows how to straight up throw a party, and makes sure you drown in a sea of balloons so you can wake up coughing up confetti the next morning.

Not a bad way to end the season, if you ask me.