Radiohead
South
Park
Oxford
July
7, 2001
These
may not be the ideal conditions for a one-day summer festival - hellish
journeys to and from the venue, extraordinarily long queues for the bar,
the first huge downpours of the summer. But tonight Radiohead once again
assert their superiority over just about every British band of the last
30 years. No fuss, no bother, just a local band mining their back catalogue
in an effortless celebration of what can be done with a bunch of de-tuned
instruments and a few freaky time signatures.
Looking
like a gang of lost students wondering what all the commotion is, Radiohead
shuffle on without announcement or fanfare. But whether it's band nerves
or technical problems, opener 'National Anthem' is disjointed and lumbering,
losing much of the power it had on Kid A and causing more than a
few to look towards the speakers for rain damage.
"This
is our only UK gig this year," says Thom Yorke after a similarly off-kilter
'Airbag'; "...so no pressure at all, then." While it's hardly end of the
pier stuff, Thom tonight is clearly in a light-hearted mood. Later he'll
do a passable impression of 'The Fast Show''s hapless pensioner Unlucky
Alf before recounting a tale of being in the same Eurostar carriage as
Geri Halliwell. To hear him talk of pressure is a curious thing. For a
group immune to the problems of lesser bands, it's refreshing to note some
imperfections, not least Colin Greenwood's new hairstyle seemingly lifted
direct from 'Emmerdale''s Cain Dingle.
Thereafter,
however, the show is damn near perfect. 'Lucky', 'My Iron Lung', 'No Surprises',
'Paranoid Android', 'Karma Police', even 'Creep' are all dispatched note-perfect
with little sign of discontent at playing material with no hint of experimental
electronica or free jazz. But even the more testing further reaches of
Amnesiac
soon spring into life when played through 30 foot speakers. 'You And Whose
Army' becomes positively demonic in its intensity while 'Knives Out' even
gets a few hardy souls dancing.
There
have been some recent murmurs of dissent with talk of Amnesiac not
delivering on the promised "real" Radiohead and simply being a more convoluted
extension of Kid A. But, like everything else they do, Radiohead
prove they were right all along and deliver one of the defining performances
of the year. They may make you work hard for your entertainment, but whether
it's the testing musical obscurity or the deluge of rain that doesn't stop
until the third encore, such toils reap huge rewards. Now where the hell
is that Lemsip?