Radiohead - a show 12 years in the making...

It has been about twelve years since the random gift of Radiohead’s The Bends fell upon my ears like a rainy dusk – a somber and powerful experience, until the stop button popped up and I had to flip the tape, SIDE B an even more vicious howling cold of digital psychadelia and beautifully composed guitar physics. I must admit that my then nine year old eardrums had not witnessed ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC that sounded this hard, but with such beautiful and “soft” elements (cue Thom Yorke’s falsetto whine and Johnny Greenwood’s ability to make his undistorted guitar sound like a squelching wood splinter). Ever since then, I’ve been a pretty steadfast Radiohead fan (and I wore the hell out of that tape).

It has been for this reason that I have also wanted to see Radiohead, live in front of my face – surely just as awesome a spectacle as was heard in what I would later find to be a varied, and most importantly, a continually progressive and, dare I say, fresh offering of albums spanning their career ever since The Bends (NOTE: Pablo Honey has its moments, but, to me, fails to fit in with the rest of Radiohead's catalogue, not to mention the unapologetic disregard for this early work by the band in shows and in print). Anyway, I finally had the chance to see them in St. Louis on the 14th - three days after my birthday as I bought tickets as a birthday present to myself. I was also able to record a little over an hour of the show, which was about HALF of the whole show. As you may or may not know about Radiohead live, they tend to play a good bit of music for quite a long time....Hm, makes sense doesn't it?

So, the best way to express my feelings is probably to give a run down of what I saw...

I was surrounded, as expected, by thousands of nerdy, white socialatti ranging from high school dregs to the thirtysomething it's-hip-to-be-square...but-I'm-still-hip-because-I-listen-to-Radiohead-
at-my-cubicle crowd. The venue (of a thousand names), Verizon Wireless Ampitheatre, was a surprise to me, as I would expect Radiohead to choose bigger places to play, rather than what appeared to be a small stage surrounded by a carnival of beer salesmen and funnel cake vendors (what?). My seats, bought from Jesus...I mean eBay, resided in lucky row NN, right at the edge of "right-center." This was cool, as lawn seating is equivalent to watching a show with cataracts in your eye and Seran wrap over your face. Overall, my view of the band was just far enough that I couldn't make out any detail in their faces, but I could still see Thom Yorke flailing about.

Hot off the tail of the infamous In Rainbows, released for "whatever you feel like paying" online back in October of 2007, it was natural that the band would want to "pimp their new shit." So, right at the start, they played two songs off of Rainbows. All I could think was "holy shit it's Radiohead!" Then they pulled out an old-school joint, Airbag, from probably their most recognized album OK Computer. At that point I thought, "Yes! Old and obscure! Can't wait to see what they play next!" Unfortunately, it was mostly more new material from Rainbows. I've been casually browsing other BLOG ENTRIES and reviews of the same show, and most others agree that Radiohead's older (pre-Kid A) material was rather astutely misrepresented, or for the most part, not represented at all.

Don't get me wrong - I think In Rainbows is great, but it's nowhere near what I found in The Bends, OK Computer, or even Kid A and its sister album Amnesiac...Hell, even Hail To The Thief offered more substance! Maybe I am corrupted in the sense that Radiohead has released such monuments in the past that they now seem to overshadow present-day offerings.

Rambling aside, this fact of the show would prove to be tiny, annoying, nagging disappointment number one.

The second qualm I had with the show was the fact that the Jumbotron screens that were installed all over the ampitheatre were not used AT ALL, a fact made clear by the literal message displayed shortly before the performance upon the said screens that said...well, that they were not going to be used. This was obviously due to Thom Yorke and crew's newfound sympathy for the environment, which also explained the LED light-powered projections, and the overpriced T-shirts made from plastic bottles - I know, sounds ridiculous. So, in effect, the only people who actually SAW the show ended up being those lucky fans who sleeplessly stayed up for days endlessly refreshing the Ticketmaster website in order to grab pit tickets - or those of you who paid $500+ on eBay after the fact. Thankfully, I didn't have lawn tickets or else I would've had to have been stoned to have a good time. That being said, my seats, as I've said earlier, were so-so.

Callous bitching aside, and these minor discrepancies aside, it was still a great show. Radiohead, as a band, are a tightly-paced, well-oiled machine - they were ON POINT...maybe a little too on point. Radiohead live admittedly sounds like Radiohead in the studio - I would've liked to see more spontaneity and improvisation, moreso than was offered I think. But hey, I can't complain - at least they didn't suck.

A better review of the St Louis show(?)

Set list taken from this site:

All I Need
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Airbag
15 Step
Nude
Kid A
Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi
The Gloaming
You & Whose Army?
Idioteque
Faust Arp
Videotape
Everything in Its Right Place
Reckoner
Optimistic
Bangers ‘N Mash (<- I ran out of video space here, unfortunately, and Thom was on drums!!)
Bodysnatchers

Encore:

Exit Music (for a Film)
Myxomatosis
My Iron Lung
There There
Fake Plastic Trees

Second encore:

Pyramid Song
House of Cards/No Surprises (stupid wrong-ass website!)
Paranoid Android

download it all here(!)