Radiohead hits right frequency

If Radiohead have lingering doubts about their latest album, Amnesiac, they might consider unleashing a live recording of last night's show at Molson Park in Barrie to settle the score.

An exaggeration, maybe. But for all the mixed reactions to Amnesiac - specifically, the ongoing squabble among supporters as to whether the album is yet another work of art-rock genius or an overblown EP with three good tracks on it - the Oxford, U.K., band's newest work held up remarkably well alongside previously road-tested giants from last year's Kid A, 1997's O.K. Computer, and '95s The Bends.

With last year's stunning, scaled-down show at the Air Canada Centre still a fresh memory, Radiohead expanded the tone of that appearance to fill Molson Park's leafier surroundings, and wash over a sold-out crowd of 25,000 (capacity was scaled back from the venue's usual standard of 35,000, making things notably more comfortable in the crowd).

Of course, the vast-open space meant that the group had to observe at least one concert tradition in the form of two jumbo screens. Even those visuals got an inventive treatment: Numerous tiny, immobile cameras were planted around the stage, and the scratchy, claustrophobic black-and-white images they transmitted looked more like footage from a security tape than from a splashy rock show.

With the band cranking out a tense set in the middle, it was a bit like simultaneously watching a live concert and a German art film. Only during the encore, for a version of Amnesiac tune "You And Whose Army", did frontman Thom Yorke finally acknowledge a camera - back to the audience at a piano, staring straight into its lens and therefore into the eyes of everyone watching and cooing a creepy serenade.

Yorke, for his part, seemed more at ease, less self-conscious, than in the past. That is to say, he still looked as if his head was going to explode, but he seemed relaxed about it, shifting and twitching like some electrified gear while guitarist Jonny Greenwood, guitarist-singer Ed O'Brien, bassist Colin Greenwood, and drummer Phil Selway - the latter two having evolved into a surprisingly fluid, deceptively funky rhythm section - worked buzzingly around him.

From the first flex of opening tune "The National Anthem", the band set a pace that was sustained for the duration of the two-hour-plus set.

And, having locked into a watertight harmony, the band was even free to swing out a bit within that, whether on the fuzz-bass propelled "Pakt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box" and the anthemic, singalong hits "Karma Police" and "Paranoid Android", or the loping, ghostly jazz pulse of "Pyramid Song".

Chalk it up to a sound mix that was leagues ahead of the open-air standard, but Jonny Greenwood's presence came across as vividly as Yorke's, his clanging guitar patterns resting just above the other instruments and becoming another voice in the process.

Short of echoing the usual, slavishly positive reviews that greet Radiohead each time they've played these parts, this is a band who, having long since entered their prime, have raised the performance bar on themselves once again.

A keeper.

Prior to a brief set by Montreal turntablist Kid Koala, Scottish openers The Beta Band offered an ideal companion set earlier in the evening, easing their way through half-a-dozen electro-folk-rock sketches, including best-known tune "Dry The Rain" - wisely included for the newcomers in the crowd - "Inner Meet Me", "Dr. Baker", and "Squares".

With their catchy tangents, they reminded that "jamming" doesn't have to be a dirty word.

Kieran Grant

Toronto Sun
04.08.01