Radiohead's ethereal vocals work well in live setting

Radiohead
Atlanta
HiFi Buys Amphitheatre
October 6, 2003

Radiohead writes opaque lyrics and shape-shifting melodies, and their singer wears a vest - not exactly a recipe for pop stardom these days.

The British quintet's latest tour, which stopped Monday night at the packed HiFi Buys Amphitheatre, has thus amounted to a sort of victory lap celebrating yet another gold record (this year's Hail to the Thief) and, more importantly, a full decade on the international rock scene.

The self-consciously odd band has never fit into rock convention. Its 1993 breakthrough single, after all, featured the refrain "I don't belong here." And since then the music has shifted from soaring guitar anthems to deconstructions of the pop form itself.

But this approach has yielded a string of surprisingly successful records. And, as the band's Atlanta concert showed, it also works in a live setting.

Monday's arrangement of "There There" went so far as to ask guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien to join full-time drummer Phil Selway on percussion. The clattering "Idioteque" appeared to be a full-band audition for the movie Drumline.

In today's version of Radiohead, beats, rhythms and (above all) textures supercede melodies and harmonies. This can feel mechanical at times, which explains why the band's critics find Radiohead songs a bit chilly.

On the other hand, the emphasis on droning keyboards and ethereal vocals also explains why the band's biggest fans find Radiohead music so otherworldly. It sounds like nothing else. And it feels like floating.

About halfway through the set, the band dusted off its big 1993 hit "Creep." Over time, that song's pre-chorus guitar stabs have entered the rock canon alongside such instantly recognizable flourishes as John Bonham's crushing drumbeats in "When The Levee Breaks."

"I Might Be Wrong" proved that a band known for brooding can still rock straight ahead. "Scatterbrain," from Hail To The Thief, rode intertwining guitars and singer Thom Yorke's lilting voice back down the slide.

As for Yorke's lyrics, well, they're notoriously inscrutable. But it's safe to say that themes included paranoia, mistrust and misrepresentation. He got a big cheer with the line in "No Surprises" that says "the government, they don't speak for us."

And yet, Radiohead is also about catharsis. This is often conveyed in code, of course - I counted three songs that mentioned rain; there may have been more - but it's there nonetheless.

In the end, Radiohead remain if not optimistic than at least resilient. They're fighters, in it for the long haul and peaking after a decade.

As the show ended with all of the band members off stage and a scramble of sound effects pouring from the speakers, the giant lightboard behind the stage scrolled a loop of one word: forever.

Nick Marino

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
07.10.03