Ahead of The Flaming Lips‘ weekend run of Southeast concerts, frontman Wayne Coyne took to social media to detail the special “An Evening With” format for these shows. From his literal green room with his son squirming on his lap for two minutes, Coyne promised two-hour performances featuring unique setlists filled with rarities from throughout the group’s extensive catalog. On Saturday, The Flaming Lips arrived at the Coca-Cola Roxy where they delivered just that, including a 23-year bust-out of Madonna cover.

From the opening note, The Flaming Lips established the special nature of Saturday’s show with “Sagittarius Silver Announcement”. The track off 2009’s Embryonic was pulled off the shelf earlier this year after lying dormant since 2010. The band followed suit throughout the show, performing recently revived rarities “Enthusiasm for Life Defeats Existential Fear” taken from the 2006 compilation 20 Years of Weird and “Always There, In Our Hearts” off The Terror (2013).

The biggest surprise, however, was Madonna’s “Borderline”, which appeared midway through the main set. The Flaming Lips had not performed the song off the pop star’s 1983 self-titled debut in front of a ticketed audience since June 28th, 2009 at Suvilahti in Helsinki, Finland, via Setlist.fm. A month later, the band performed the song in Syndey, Australia, ironically for radio station triple j‘s Like A Version cover series.

The band also made sure to touch on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. The Flaming Lips are prepping a massive 20th-anniversary reissue of the classic album, and on Saturday performed “Do You Realize??”, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1”, “Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell”, and “All We Have Is Now”, with the latter arriving in the four-song encore.

Check out a gallery of images from The Flaming Lips at Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta on Saturday courtesy of photographer Emily Butler. The band’s run of “An Evening With The Flaming Lips” performances continues tonight, October 17th, at Firefly Distillery in Charleston, SC. For tickets visit their website.

The Flaming Lips – “Do You Realize??” – 10/15/22

[Video: Richard Vining]

The Flaming Lips – “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1” – 10/15/22

[Video: Okay Then]

The Flaming Lips – “Borderline” (Madonna) – 10/15/22

[Video: Richard Vining]

The Flaming Lips – “My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion” – 10/15/22

[Video: Okay Then]

The Flaming Lips – “Worm Mountain” – 10/15/22

[Video: Okay Then]

The Flaming Lips – “Race for the Prize” – 10/15/22

[Video: Okay Then]

View Videos

Setlist: The Flaming Lips | Coca-Cola Roxy | Atlanta, GA | 10/15/22

Set: Sagittarius Silver Announcement, Silver Trembling Hands, Do You Realize??, Enthusiasm for Life Defeats Existential Fear, How??, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1, Borderline (Madonna) [1], Assassins of Youth, Always There, In Our Hearts, Waitin’ for a Superman, Mother I’ve Taken LSD, Sunship Balloons, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, She Don’t Use Jelly, Moth in the Incubator

Encore: My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion, Worm Mountain, All We Have Is Now, Race for the Prize

[1] LTP 6/28/09