The difference between The Flaming Lips at the Brighton Centre in 2006 and their Brighton Festival show could be summed up by one thing – black confetti.

Whereas the band’s At War With The Mystics tour was a two-hour party, the show to support their current album was more an audio-visual assault.

The Terror is a much more impenetrable beast, eschewing singalong anthems for bass-driven slow-burning soundscapes such as Look... The Sun Is Rising and Butterfly, How Long It Takes To Die.

The show reflected this, with frontman Wayne Coyne clutching a baby doll and singing atop an alien landscape of silver mirrored domes strewn with rope lights, backed by a bright digital screen which burned the retinas.

Aside from a burst of energy which closed a stripped-back Race For The Prize there were few euphoric moments where the crowd could get up and dance. Instead, this was more of an all-encompassing unforgettable experience for the mind.

The only weak link was Coyne’s voice – still suffering from a nasty bout of the flu. His vocals were lost when he attempted a cover of David Bowie’s Heroes and both the crowd and long-time sidesman Steven Drozd had to fill in on main set closer Do You Realize??