More surprises from Radiohead
Radiohead/ Willy Mason
Tower Theater
Upper Darby
June 1, 2006
Radiohead became one of the biggest rock bands in the world by rarely behaving the way other rock bands do.
Thursday night at the Tower Theater, where the experimentalists from Oxford, England, debuted material on a keenly anticipated two-night stand that launched their North American tour, one encore selection was "No Surprises," a pretty ballad about Thom Yorke's favorite subjects: disillusionment and alienation.
But of course Radiohead is full of surprises. After first appearing to be a one-hit wonder with 1993's "Creep," the fivesome (Yorke; multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood and his bassist brother, Colin; drummer Phil Selway; and guitarist Ed O'Brien) emerged as serious, big-selling artistes with the prog-rock OK Computer in 1997. They only increased their fame and artistic cred when they defied convention with Kid A and Amnesiac, two early-'00s discs filled with inscrutable, computer-driven, ambient music.
So Thursday's sweltering show at the Tower was, for Radiohead, typically unorthodox. Tickets went for a reasonable $41, but in a venue one-tenth the size of the Tweeter Center, which the band sold out on 2003's Hail to the Thief tour, there weren't enough to go around. Many a forlorn, thinking-person's rock fan stood outside in hopes of miraculously snagging a ticket, which were going for $300 on StubHub.com.
What really makes this tour unusual, though, is that Radiohead has no new album to push, and no record label, either, for that matter. Instead, it's using the nine-city jaunt to roll out songs from an untitled, half-finished CD due next year.
The show opened with Yorke at the piano on a darkened stage for the creeping "You and Whose Army?", with black-and-white images shown on a video screen fractured into 10 pieces. Could that symbolize the plight of the individual in a broken, soul-killing world?
And after turning up the volume with two familiar crowd-pleasers - "National Anthem" and "2 + 2 = 5" - the band got down to nine songs previously unheard in the United States.
In the age of music industry Internet paranoia, it's refreshing to see a band like Radiohead - for whom paranoia is the thematic meat-and-potatoes, or, to borrow the title of one scintillating new song, "Bangers 'n' Mash" - be so open about trying out new stuff in public, piracy be damned.
So what did the songs sound like? Guitar-based, for one thing. With Yorke's techno-flavored solo disc, The Eraser, due next month, Radiohead seems to have left the oddball artiness to its leader, and sounded on the new songs like a (relatively) conventional rock band.
Jonny Greenwood did pull off the neat trick of making his guitar sound like a keyboard, and he played it with a bow, like a cello, from time to time. But most of the songs for which he and O'Brien got on their knees to manipulate synthesizer gizmos that looked like bomb detonators came from prior albums.
The normalcy was most disappointing on songs such as "House of Cards," a soul-rock groove that was pleasant but dull. The band appeared somewhat tentative at times, on seemingly unremarkable cuts including "Nude" and "Arpeggi." And there was one amusing interlude during which technical difficulties caused a delay that the unabashed nerds were unable to fill with stage patter. "Does anyone know a joke?" asked Yorke, the unlikely rock star. No one did.
The new material was mixed in with fan favorites such as "Karma Police" and "Everything in Its Right Place," jazzed with fresh energy and displaying Yorke's dry, oh-so-subtle humor. And a handful of new songs came across as faves-to-be.
"Spooks" was a furious, 30-second blast of controlled fury worthy of Dick Dale or Sonic Youth. "15 Step" rattled and shook with a clap-along beat that had Yorke dancing spasmodically. For "Bangers 'n' Mash," the singer and guitarist switched to a mini-drum kit on a song that righteously roared into the three-drummer attack of Hail to the Thief's set-closing "There There."
The new material was a mixed bag, but give Radiohead points for taking chances and delivering the unexpected - just as you'd expect.
Dan DeLuca
Philadelphia Inquirer
03.06.06