Repeating the magic

It's Friday night, I've already witnessed the amiable shambling prog-folk of Alfie, I find myself surrounded by hundreds of rabidly excited Flaming Lips fans, and I feel like a grumpy sour-faced old killjoy. Flanked by a dozen fans in animal costumes, Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins have just taken to the stage and, amidst balloons and cascades of glitter, launched into 'Race For The Prize'. It's a spectacular opening, and yet I'm gutted.

You see, I've seen all this before, at Glastonbury. Immediately, I know the setlist will be practically identical - in fact, the only additions are the not-as-great-as-it-might-have-been cover of 'Seven Nation Army', tossed away carelessly early on, and the recent Chemical Brothers collaboration 'The Golden Path', which curiously sounds like The Strokes live. The encore will consist of 'Waiting For A Superman' and the cover of 'Breathe' by Pink Floyd. There's fake blood for 'The Spark That Bled' and the customary rendition of 'Happy Birthday', there's handheld smoke machines, there's the loudspeaker, there's the nun hand-puppet singing the final chorus of 'Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Pt 1', there are the same projections - even down to the warning "Don't snort your own brain, just enjoy The Flaming Lips". The only real surprise is when the girl onstage in the panda outfit faints due to the heat and strobe lighting, and the show is held up for a few minutes while she's tended to.

I stand there knowing I'm witnessing something brilliant, especially during 'The Gash' and 'Do You Realise??'. And yet all the time it's tinged with disappointment. Despite the glee they very evidently provoke all around me, I can't help reaching the conclusion that the band named as currently the top American act by The Guardian are becoming predictable. For a band like The Lips, who thrive on invention, that's a crying shame.

They've put themselves in a difficult position: how do they move on and better what has gone before? The Glastonbury show felt less like a gig than an Event - momentous, memorable and perhaps even life-changing, as the opening projected images predicted. Quite simply, it felt like a one-off. And to see them do it all again, albeit on a vastly reduced scale, is a hugely disillusioning experience. You find yourself forced to acknowledge that nothing's unique, and that everything can be reproduced. Above all, while all around me might be having their own personal Lips epiphany, I'm left feeling that the one I had in June is being devalued, the moment desecrated.

With hindsight, of course they were going to be amazing again, and of course I was going to feel let down. I shouldn't have gone.