I love falling in love with new bands at festivals, and I love being surprised by acts that I never thought I would have liked.  In my experience, most festivals I've been to there has been that one act that I didn’t expect to completely fall in love with, last year Chase & Status totally blew me away at Parklife Weekender.  Now I know what you're thinking, and its true, I hate to admit it but, sometimes I am a bit slow on the uptake.  Everyone had been buzzing about them for ages before I even could be bothered to discover what all the fuss was about, but it was seeing them live which made me get them. It made me understand what they were doing and why it worked so wonderfully. In the Heineken Open'er, Gdansk, it was James Blake that blew my head off with his web of beautiful electronic sounds and stunning vocals, it felt like we were all put under some sort of spell where we couldn’t take our eyes off the quiet yet breathtaking music he made before us.  I love being surprised, and I love it when festival organisers throw in a curve ball, so when I found out The Flaming Lips were playing at predominantly main stream pop festival Parklife Weekender this year I was one hundred percent thrilled, but, I'm not sure how this is going to go down at a festival where last year, the headliners were Two Door Cinema Club and Chase & Status.

Now I don’t want to underestimate the crowd that would normally attend Parklife, they seemed like quite nice people when I was there but I'm not sure if they'll be as excited as I am about psychedelic alternative rock, when the bill is usually filled with the kind of music played on Radio1.  If you're planning on heading to Parklife, don’t be put off by their wackiness, The Flaming Lips have a reputation for putting on visually stunning shows and enrapturing audiences all over the world, so go and be surprised, you never know you might fall in love with the Flaming Lips, or you might hate it, who knows?  .

One of my favourite Flaming Lips songs, its and oldie but a goodie.