I was starting to become cynical about The Flaming Lips wheeling out the same old schtick on the psychedelic Oklahoma band’s umpteenth tour: the endless confetti, ringmaster Wayne Coyne’s giant hamster ball and the dancers dressed as animals. Then a huge balloon bounced off the back of my head and I was grinning like a two‑year-old again.

On record, in contrast, the fun has stopped. Latest album Embryonic is the career weirdos’ weirdest in years, a collection of half-formed jams with a sense of undefined menace missing from its cuddly immediate predecessors. It proved awkward to fit the new songs into a generally joyful set.

Funereal ballad Evil was accompanied by a clip of a monkey undergoing vivisection that severely dampened the mood. The thunderous riff of See the Leaves felt like being hit with a sledgehammer not a balloon.

At their best, as on euphoric encore Do You Realize??, the band can take a gloomy line like: “Do you realise that everyone you know someday will die?” and make it sound like a beautiful, wonderful thing.

Sometimes here that magical touch was gone, but more often, as when Coyne swung his strobe light, banged his gong and an incredible new laser effect made it look as if we were approaching light speed, it was impossible not to be enthralled by this unique world yet again.