God damnit, they're good. This is the first thing I would like to say after seeing the world's biggest rock band twice this past week on the eastern coast of the United States of America. There is something, somewhere that is right with the current musical climate when a band this good can fill venues around the world with 15,000 people. It doesn't usually work like that.
Despite their "underground" pretensions, this was a Rock Concert in the tradition of yellow security shirts, lighting cues and three dollar waters - and one that went off without a hitch. The Radiohead organization came through with excellent sound (especially at Jersey City), interesting opening bands (The Beta Band were OK, Kid Koala was excellent) and beautiful locations (in Boston - a dog race track; in Jersey City - a Hudson River park overlooking the Statue of Liberty).
Despite a Rolling Stone cover story stating that Radiohead "had to destroy rock" to find themselves, or some-such bullshit, the band stayed away from the more electronic-oriented pieces from Kid A and Amnesiac. People, I know it's hard, but they sounded a whole lot like a rock band, especially on the glorious three-guitar assault and Thom Yorke sneer of "The Bends," which wagged a middle finger at just about everything.
Tight where they needed to be (tempo) and loose where they didn't (Jonny Greenwood guitar solos), Radiohead came off at times like a 21st century Crazy Horse and at others like an overly concise 21st century Faust. Either way, the band made it look easy, marrying 60s and 70s rock band theatrics with modern arrangements and delicate, constantly shifting orchestration.
Increasingly, a Radiohead record highlights the bands talents in post-production and "using the studio as an instrument." Most aspects of powerful live performance are jettisoned on songs like "Kid A" or "Like Spinning Plates," replaced by esoteric texture and modern technology. So it was revelatory to see five musicians playing so fucking well together, managing the difficult task of playing with precision and passion.
Live, Radiohead were controlled and tight, but often approximated feelings of chaos or enclosure, of grating psychological trauma headed for hysteria, loud and merciless shifts in the brain. In short, elements of life that are not very controlled. Perhaps this relationship between form and content (volatile music performed in a conscientious manner) accounts for some of Radiohead's allure.
The whole band is good and each member plays his vital part, but we can be honest here. Radiohead sound like Radiohead because of Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, a fact made all the more obvious in a live setting. Switching between several guitars, a transistor radio ("The National Anthem"), a glockenspiel ("No Surprises"), a digitally-reproduced mellotron, the ondes martenot (a turn of the century keyboard/theremin hybrid), an analog sequencer ("Idioteque") and a sampler ("Everything in its Right Place"), Jonny invariably made the distinctive noise on each song that coasted along and between Thom Yorke's ache and rage. When a 1-2-3 punch of "Fake Plastic Trees," "Climbing up the Walls" and "How to Disappear Completely" treaded close to emotional Yorke overload, I found myself awestruck at Mr Greenwood's ondes martenot, as he reinterpreted his entire string arrangement from "How To Disappear Completely" in a new light.
At times I wished that the band would make room in their arrangements for some kind of improvisation or extended interlude. As it went down, nothing seemed to happen for more than four or eight times through, and you could sense well ahead of time (once or twice with a vague sense of dread) a songs final cymbal crash and distorted guitar chord. It's nice that they are concerned about our attention spans, but the rock lost a little ground in the overly tidy arrangements.
Additionally, the presence of drummer Phil Selway swings from being an interesting and understated limitation to an occasional liability. A few times on both nights Selway was unable to meet the demands of his parts, most notably on the less interesting "re-arranged for rock band" version of "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box," where his breakbeats sounded brutally tired and behind the beat. Thom Yorke's authoritarian tambourine playing on that song almost seemed an admission of their drummers limitations. Surely one of the greatest singers of the modern rock spectrum, Yorke is an unrelenting ball of energy, but this occasionally lead to a spotty performance. Some songs never seemed to take off for him, while others were delivered with a brutal sneer or naked emotional honesty that lit up the night.
At both concerts, I found myself thinking strange thoughts like how fortunate I was to be alive at a time when such a phenomenal band is still touring and making music. It's a feeling I imagine someone might experience seeing Jimi in 1969, Ornette at the Five Spot, Zeppelin around Houses of the Holy, Fela at the Shrine in Lagos. Animals - thinking humans - at the top of their powers. Forces of nature and the human mind, blowing through.
-Ben Sterling
Junkmedia
08.01