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How on Earth does one explain the ongoing success of The Flaming Lips?

Don't get me wrong, frontman Wayne Coyne and company make interesting and engaging music and put on a hell of a show, but since when has that been enough?

Hailing from Oklahoma City, the band spent the '80s playing the indie club circuit, building a following devoted to the group's quirky music and theatrical (puppets!) performances, before striking gold with "She Don't Use Jelly," in the heart of the "alternative rock" explosion of the early 1990s.

But "Jelly" could have been a novelty, an exception, and it took six more years for The Flaming Lips to crack open the mainstream consciousness once again, this time with "The Soft Bulletin," an album full of irresistible pop songs rendered in lush strokes.

The single, "Waiting for Superman" caught on and the record was a hit, especially in Britain. It's follow-up, "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" dished up the title track and "Do You Realize??" in 2002 and cemented the band's success, as did "At War With the Mystics" four years later.

But in the decade since, the band has only issued two "traditional" (for lack of a better word) albums – 2009's "Embryonic" and 2013's "The Terror" – amid a flurry of engaging and interesting electronic music film scores, complete re-recordings of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and a pair of releases made with the band's "fwends."

A (seemingly unlikely) collaboration with Miley Cyrus is apparently in the works.

Challenging, groundbreaking, explorational, risk-taking ... yes, all of the above. But as a recipe for pop success, it seems like suicide.

And yet...

While the BMO Harris Pavilion was definitely not packed to capacity Saturday night there was a huge crowd on hand to see The Flaming Lips bring the party outside.

Every gig is definitely a party, with everything from streamers to confetti to inflatable figures and more. Despite the fact that a computer problem led the band to take the stage nearly a half-hour late, no one seemed to mind much.

If there was any question about whether or not the Lips' transcendent performances would work outdoors, Coyne and his bandmates put it to rest quickly at the get-go. Opening with "The Abandoned Hospital Ship," The F-Lips treated the first song as if it were the last – the grand finale.

There were inflatable mushrooms and and a rainbow – suits occupied by people – glow in the dark balloons and big inflated balls bubbling up and down over the crowd, confetti and streamers rained down and a psychedelic video showed played on the screen behind the band.

At the end of the tune, Coyne brought out a huge silver mylar balloon in the shape of the words "F*ck Yeah Summerfest."

When an inflatable Santa was joined by an equally puffy catfish and, I think, lizard, it became clear that every song was going to seem like a finale.

Even when things got quiet between songs or when the band jammed while Coyne prepared his next feat – like crowd surfing and singing "Vein of Stars" inside an enormous transparent ball – the crowd was rapt.

The only hiccup – other than that computer – was when, a few lines into "Yoshimi," one of two inflatable butterflies went limp. The band stopped for an uncomfortably long period of time, seemingly unable to continue.

But Coyne used it as an opportunity to fire up the faithful, urging them to "root for the butterfly," leading the audience to chant, "butter-fly! butterfly!"

"If we would've continued," Coyne explained before striking up the tune again, "it would've made the song seem like we're gonna be defeated. We're not gonna be defeated. This is our triumphant song."

And, there you have it. Take some triumphant songs – especially ones that are often liltingly beautiful – add a non-stop party (oh, and a little weed, too, apparently) and that is how The Flaming Lips do it.

Setlist:

The Abandoned Hospital Ship
Fight Test 
She Don't Use Jelly 
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power)
Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung
Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus With Needles 
Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 2
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate
Vein of Stars
Butterfly, How Long It Takes to Die
The W.A.N.D. 
A Spoonful Weighs a Ton 

Encore:
Do You Realize??