Miley Cyrus abandoned twerking in favor of playing a singing bowl and chanting wordless refrains Thursday at a sold-out Riviera Theatre in Chicago. The episode was one of many curious moments that defined the first date of her short club tour with the Dead Petz — an alias of the Flaming Lips — and served as further evidence of the one-time child star’s ongoing transformation.
Filled with momentum-sapping pauses and anything-goes disorganization, the uneven two-hour concert often came across as the inverse of shows typically staged by arena-level pop stars.
Not that the event lacked spectacle. Cyrus’ colorful pageantry evoked a combination of adult-rated Halloween party, low-budget “Kinky Boots,” acid-damaged commune and theatrical variety show. Balloons, confetti and fog obscured the vocalist on multiple occasions. While operating outside the confines of normalcy, Cyrus seemingly possessed no interest in shock value or embracing an outré guise for the sake of commercial strategy. If anything, the 22-year-old’s performance art — and sound of her newer experimental-minded music — flew in the face of the mainstream.
Cyrus’ persona changed considerably since she made headlines for her controversial appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2013. Once viewed as scandalous, she’s since become an outspoken advocate for the LGBT community and started a charitable foundation for homeless youth. The activism — and Cyrus’ revelation that she’s pansexual — parallels her transition away from Top 20 pop, a style she primarily ignored Thursday.
Instead, she focused on “Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz,” a psychedelic-leaning album she released independently and streamed for free. Live, sun-warped fare such as “Karen Don’t Be Sad” and “Space Boots” felt like cover-band copies of older Flaming Lips songs. Other tunes were more half-baked, resembling fragmentary sketches or amateur rehearsals. Occasionally, as on a solo rendition of “Pablow the Blowfish” or prog-rock drama of “Tiger Dreams,” Cyrus hinted at raw sincerity.
Primarily, however, she used the loose sonic collages as vehicles for visual expressiveness and creative freedom. Parading around in costumes that transformed her into a stick of butter, the sun, the moon, a big baby and a disco-savvy astronaut, among other identities, Cyrus treated seriousness and traditional gender rules as adversaries. She blatantly talked and sang about sex on her own terms, parodying strip-tease antics during “Fweaky” and praising the carnal delights of lesbian love on “Bang Me Box.” For Cyrus, fluidity, peace and pot conquered all.
Cyrus also benefited in that the uncomfortable behavior of Wayne Coyne — who watched the singer with the sleazy resolve of a dirty uncle — distracted from her worst instances. Reduced to a carny and cheerleader, the Flaming Lips leader appears to be suffering from a serious midlife crisis.
Bob Gendron is a freelance critic.
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