Hail to Radiohead at Concerts Across the US

By Chris Meyer
Opinions Editor

Radiohead are in an interesting place in, The Year of Our Lord 2003. Already six years after their immortalizing epic OK Computer, three years after their classic genre-defying Kid A and two years after their, er, newer album, Amnesiac, the band seems to have hit their apex already, at least on paper. Since the last time we heard from the Oxford quintet, garage rock and electroclash became the latest buzzwords among the hipster kids, while modern rock radio has embraced liberal pillagers of Radiohead’s sound, such as Coldplay and Muse. On the eve of their sixth album’s release, the question became: can even Radiohead remain relevant forever?

Hail to the Thief was released, legally, in June, although by that point many had already made their decision thanks to internet leakage. For some, the songs were good, but not as revolutionary as they had come to expect from Thom Yorke and company; many see it as a failure to step forward and wrongly equate it as a step backward (I prefer to think of it as a step sideways). At one point during pre-release press Yorke referred to the album as “OK Computer 2,” which did something of a disservice to HTTT – it’s a logical amalgamation of their last three albums more than anything, less of a rehash than a regrouping of sounds.

But if Radiohead’s image has suffered at all for their failure to reinvent rock for the nth time, you wouldn’t know from their fanbase; if anything, the band continues to reign in new fans by the truckload, as evidenced by the miniscule chances of actually getting tickets to one of the shows on their American tour. I was lucky enough to see them perform in St. Louis this summer, and again last weekend at the Hollywood Bowl, and each show managed to highlight a different dimension of the Radiohead persona in 2003.

The UMB Pavilion in St. Louis, MO, was a crowded, poorly laid-out venue, with the unfortunate lawn concertgoers pushed even further back than usual due to the enormous VIP section a third of the way back. The band had not come through this city in a while, and perhaps this was why: a Clear Channel event in the heart of the Bible Belt, it seemed an unlikely place to find thousands of fans devoted to challenging, anti-establishment rock music. Yet here they all were, clamoring for the gospel according to Yorke, and the band obliged them with… technical problems.

One minute into the night’s opener, “The Gloaming,” the prerecorded electronic backbeat choked and died, and Yorke had to stop the song cold to go fix whatever had gone wrong. Tensions mounted for a moment, but suddenly he was back at the mic once again, continuing right where he left off: “They will suck you down to the other side,” and the crowd went nuts. This was a reunion between band and fans after years of separation, and neither monster corporation nor technical malfunction would stand in their way. Even the setlist that night was especially memorable: the basic tour setlist seemed to have been thrown out the window for this show. Some of the newer material was replaced by rarely-performed songs such as “Climbing Up the Walls” and “Knives Out”; St. Louis was also the only crowd on this tour so far lucky enough to get a performance of the 1995 fan-favorite “Bulletproof… I Wish I Was.” Yorke dedicated “There There” to “all the people on the lawn that we can’t see, because there’s these weird VIP seats in the way… the fuck is that?” Though the show had started off rocky, Radiohead more than made up for it as the night progressed. As the show wound down, Yorke took the time to thank St. Louis (or, presumably, at least the fraction of the city crammed into the venue) for having them: “It’s a shame the show is owned by Clear Channel, but there you go. We chose to play this show anyway, and that’s for your benefit, not theirs.” Amid the ensuing roar of the crowd, Radiohead launched into the feral “Myxomatosis,” and the fans shouted along, word for word.

As intimate as the St. Louis show seemed, the atmosphere during the band’s second night in Los Angeles seemed almost the opposite. Though the Hollywood Bowl was a better venue, it was about twice as big as the UMB Pavilion, and, as large L.A. shows tend to go, it was questionable how many concertgoers were fans and how many were just there to look hip. The band’s setlist had returned to normal, starting off with new songs “2+2=5” and “Sit Down, Stand Up,” and continued through setlist mainstays such as “Morning Bell” and “I Might Be Wrong”. The highlight of the show came early on with the surprise performance of “Creep”, the band’s 1993 hit that almost turned the band into another one-hit-wonder and performed rarely since 1996. The crowd’s reaction to the song’s opening chords basically defined the word “apeshit”; the stage lights swung outward to illuminate the thousands of fans singing, the dotted field of flickering Zippo lighters and the green digital displays of tricked-out cellphones taking photos for the friends back home. It felt like a moment of communion between us and them: the band kicking pretension for a minute, and delivering a familiar song from more innocent times.

That, however (aside from some hilarious camera posturing from Thom during “You and Whose Army?”), was the limit of band-fan interaction for the night. No words were said between songs, no introductions or explanations and only one dedication (Airbag, quickly, “for the Chili Peppers”). Maybe it was due to the sheer audience size, the jaded state of the L.A. music scene, or something else entirely. The bright side, however, was that tonight the band’s performance was technically amazing. Songs like “Backdrifts” and “Punch-Up at a Wedding” benefited from live guitar work from Jonny Greenwood, the band’s unsung hero. Greenwood also tore through “Go to Sleep,” finishing with a bizarrely intense minute-long guitar solo. The rather flat album cut “The Gloaming” took on a life of its own onstage, climaxing with a sound effect freak-out of boggling proportions. As for HTTT’s first single, “There There” – there’s just no way I can adequately describe the performance, beyond saying that this is why bands tour, this is why the concert experience is so important to understanding a band. If you haven’t experienced this song yet live, you owe it to yourself.

Two shows, and two completely different experiences: one organic, faulty but almost magical; the other aloof, measured, perfectly executed. The fact that any band, after 11 years, six albums, multiple hits and everything else, can still navigate both of these extremes (and usually come out with a winning combination of the two) simply boggles my mind. It leaves me in awe of these experiences, and most of all, leaves me excited for their future music.