Get weird for free at Granfalloon this year with headliner The Flaming Lips

Jill Bond, The Herald-Times
Updated ·3 min read
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The Flaming Lips will headline Granfalloon, Bloomington's annual celebration of Hoosier author Kurt Vonnegut's literary contributions.

The Flaming Lips, a band formed in 1983 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, are best known for elaborate stage antics, trippy song arrangements and out-there song titles. Their most famous song, 1993's "She Don't Use Jelly," reached No. 55 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Also slated to perform are Son Lux, an experimental band who recently released a 49-song soundtrack from the film "Everything Everywhere All at Once," which has been nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including best original score and best original song. The experimental band is led by Indiana University Jacobs School of Music alumnus Ryan Lott.

Opening for The Flaming Lips will be two-time Grammy winners Arrested Development, a hip-hop band that fuses soul, blues and other musical forms with roots in Africa.

The Flaming Lips concert will be free and open to the public on Kirkwood Avenue at 5 p.m. on June 10. Son Lux will perform at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater June 9.

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Granfalloon includes many other free and ticketed events from June 7 to 11. The event lineup can be found on the Granfalloon website. Tickets for ticketed events will be available March 22.

The festival celebrates local excellence in the arts and will host a number of nationally recognized guest artists with ties to the Bloomington arts scene, including:

  • Bloomington native, IU alumna and New York Times bestseller Meg Cabot, author of “The Princess Diaries” series, who will give a matinee reading June 10 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

  • A trio of performances led by music producer Mark Bingham that will highlight acts of historical significance in the Bloomington music scene, of which he is a veteran.

This year’s festival takes inspiration from Vonnegut’s first novel, “Player Piano,” highlighting themes of technology and creativity, automation, and the rise of the computer age.

Events that align with this year’s theme include:

  • Award-winning science fiction author Ted Chiang, who will give a reading and discussion on the intersections of AI and culture June 8 at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

  • A trio of exhibits that explore Vonnegut’s novel, creativity in the age of AI, and the use of digital technology in the arts and humanities, at the Gayle Karch Cook Center for Public Arts and Humanities.

  • A staged reading of a never-developed “Player Piano” screenplay produced by Constellation Stage & Screen.

  • An AfterHours event at WonderLab Museum.

  • A film series hosted by local pop-up movie theater Cicada Cinema.

Additional festival events include:

  • A screening of the Oscar-nominated film “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” at IU Cinema

  • Girls Rock Bloomington showcase performance.

  • Vonnegut-themed music, literature and art performance headlined by Salo Pallini.

  • A restaging of the city’s own Gentry Brothers Circus, featuring performances by contemporary circus artists.

  • Performances of “On the Line,” a new play by IU faculty Jonathan Michaelsen and Ansley Valentine about the machine that is college football.

  • A series of book discussions in partnership with Indiana Humanities and the Monroe County Public Library.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: The Flaming Lips, Son Lux perform for Granfalloon in Bloomington