Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse announce co-headlining tour

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Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse announce co-headlining "The Good Times are Killing Me" tour

By Chris Morgan | Last updated Mar 25, 2025 2:33 PM ET

Both The Flaming Lips and Modest Mouse were able to break through into the mainstream with a song. For the former, it was the anthemic "Do You Realize??" which is, of course, from an album that starts off as the story of a woman named Yoshimi battling pink robots but then abandons that idea and that speaks to why The Flaming Lips haven't been fully embraced by the mainstream.

For Modest Mouse, they delivered a true hit in the form of "Float On," a song that became such a part of the cultural wallpaper that there is a Kidz Bop version of it.

In the 1990s indie rock space, though, the Lips and Modest Mouse are both stalwarts and standouts. Now, the two bands will be doing a co-headlining tour to close out the summer here in 2025.

After The Flaming Lips return from a European tour, they will join forces with Modest Mouse starting August 1 in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour will go on through the summer and end with two shows on September 10 and 11 at a large venue just outside Portland, Oregon. It appears open-air venues, bowls and amphitheaters and the like, are the name of the game for this tour.

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This should be an interesting tour. Modest Mouse and The Flaming Lips both have impressive, extensive discographies, but they do not have the same performing sensibilities. The Flaming Lips tend to be quite psychedelic and theatrical, whereas Modest Mouse is a more straight-ahead rock band and the quality of their shows tends to rely on the, shall we say, lucidity of frontman Isaac Brock.

Still, if a show isn't great, it should at least be interesting.

(h/t Pitchfork)

Chris Morgan

Chris Morgan is a Detroit-based culture writer who has somehow managed to justify getting his BA in Film Studies. He has written about sports and entertainment across various internet platforms for years and is also the author of three books about '90s television.

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