SAN FRANCISCO--This much is true: It is damn easy to lose yourself at a Flaming Lips concert, without inebriation of any sort.

From the very first note of their set at Bimbo's in San Francisco last night--the opening night of the 14th annual Noise Pop festival--a spectacle ensues.

An on-the-mic cam provides absurdly close-up views of frontman Wayne Coyne's nostrils on the giant video screen behind the stage. A smoke machine camouflages the real thing in the crowd.

And then there are the ever-present, multicolored giant balloons. Dozens and dozens of them.

But don't get it twisted: While the props create a deluge of psychedelic stimuli, the music, particularly the fuzz-tone funk of the past two albums, stands on its own. The Flaming Lips aren't just modern day Merry Pranksters, but an abundantly adept rock band that just happens to have a penchant for costumes, puppets, gigantic gloves, bullhorns, confetti, and freaky visuals.

After a short intro in which frontman Wayne Coyne read a proclamation from Mayor Gavin Newsom declaring this Noise Pop Week, the band launched into "Race for the Prize," the joyous opening track of 1999's Soft Bulletin, as balloons careened all over the tiny supper club-esque venue.

Just as they had in their two "secret" shows at the South by Southwest festival earlier this month, the Lips then set into "Bohemian Rhapsody," bringing an almost congregational vibe to the classic, multipart Queen song, complete with repeated provocations from Coyne for the crowd to join him on vocals.

"That sounded like we were losing our minds a bit together," Coyne said as the track ended.

Then came the fuzzy falsetto funk of "Free Radicals" from the Lips' new record, At War with the Mystics (their 11th studio album), followed by the blissfully bassy "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt.1" from the 2003 album of the same name. Accompanied by a nun puppet, Coyne led the crowd on another extended chant of the unbelievably weird-but-catchy chorus: "Oh Yoshimi, they don't believe me/but you won't let those robots eat me."

Unlike the metaphor-laden, good-versus-evil songs from Yoshimi and Bulletin, Coyne's lyrics are much more pointed on At War. At the end of Bush administration-directed "Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," which features the verse, "With all your power/What would you do?" Coyne launched into a lengthy political rant, preaching to his entranced choir.

"We're singing songs in which we're saying, in not so subtle ways, that we wish we didn't have to deal with George Bush," he said. "This next song embodies all of that."

The band then tore into the druggy prog-rock riff of "The W.A.N.D. (Will Always Negates Defeat)," the song most emblematic of the Lips' recent attraction to blunt lyrics and Black Sabbath. "Time after time those fanatical minds try to rule all the world/Telling us all it's them who's in charge of it all," Coyne sang.

After running through favorites like "Do You Realize" and their 1994 hit "She Don't Use Jelly," as well as the rarely played "Love Yer Brain," the Lips illustrated their affection for Sabbath by encoring with "War Pigs," the legendary metal pioneers' blunt war-protest anthem. Coyne has credited the song as the creative impulse for much of the amped-up guitar rock on At War.

With a fast-paced Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush video montage behind him, Coyne's voice fell short of Ozzy's vintage, urgently shrill howl, but it sufficed for sure.

The latest turn for the Oklahoma City rockers, now in their 24th year, has seen them adopt a more directly political approach and a scruffier, guitar-driven sound. Coupled with Coyne's infectious charm and a trunk of toys that would make Carrot Top proud, it all makes for a dazzling show--if you can avoid the sensory overload and getting bonked in the head with one of those gigantic balloons, that is.