Seven years ago at the very first show produced at Jodrell Bank The Flaming Lips performed a landmark show beneath the iconic Lovell Telescope with fittingly anthemic lines such as ‘look out into space, it surrounds you’ & ‘two scientists are racing, for the good of all man kind.’

That afternoon Tim O’Brien, head of astrophysics at Jodrell Bank, stepped onto the main stage to present for the first time and was received with chants from the audience of ‘Science, science, science” something was beginning, a perfect combination of some odd bedfellows.

Watching Wayne Coyne in conversation with an astronomer in Jodrell Banks control room discussing the possibility of alternative dimensions was the seed of an idea that eventually flowered as the all encompassing bluedot festival.

The return of The Flaming Lips is set to be a momentous occasion in the bluedot cosmos.