May 04, 2006

Flaming Lips, Jack White, Coca Cola & optimism




I spent the first hours of long awaited summer in Copenhagen with an outside dinner in Tivoli Gardens (the rather famous Danish amusement park in the centre of the city) my destination was the newly redecorated concert hall – a truly magnificent place dating back to late modernism. The guest on the stage and the premiere act since the reopening - where the Flaming Lips one of my favourite bands out there. The Flaming Lips has a new album out and though it doesn’t top their 1999 masterpiece “The Soft Bulletin” it’s terrific stuff – with great songs like “The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” and “Mr. Ambulance Driver”.

I was really expectant since I saw Wayne Coine & Co. back in 2003 and it was one my all time best concerts. And I was not let down this time either. The Flaming Lips have their own unique multidimensional show surrounding their psychedelic and dreamy pop tunes including dancing characters on stage, arty films and graphics on the back screen, confetti, hundreds of orange mega balloons all over the place and most importantly the charismatic Wayne Coine in the front singing, playing and conducting the epic sounds.

It’s a mesmerizing experience and as Wayne Coins preaches it’s all about creating an atmosphere of optimism between band and audience and throughout the whole concert hall. Really, kind of uplifting taken into context that most of the songs are about death and melancholic musings on life.

Most brands and agency folks could learn something from this rather complex multidimensional experience and not least the optimistic take on life.

And speaking of optimism which seems to be the key word for the new Coca Cola strategy I’m one of the ones really liking the new Coke/Mother spot with Jack White singing. The fact that the idea is basically a reprise of the director Director Nagi Noda own former work for the band Yuki on the song Sentimental Journey (which I have posted about earlier on this blog) doesn’t bother me. Call it an original idea, great pop cultural lateral thinking or simply a great stunt - it’s great to look at, it’s beautiful directed and it has a song by Jack White.

Here are the two films:

Coca Cola – “What Goes Around” directed by Nagi Noda for Mother
http://www.boardsmag.com/screeningroom/commercials/2790/


Yuki – Sentimental Journey, directed by Nagi Noda
http://www.partizan.com/partizan/musicvideos/?nagi_noda



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