A band unafraid to play with possibilities - and thrilled to play with each other
Radiohead/
Four Tet
Olympia
Theatre
Dublin
May
17, 2003
Rating: 4/5
Where to now for Radiohead? At first glance, the impression is that the Oxfordshire quintet must have peaked. Having overhauled their guitar-rock template on 1997's OK Computer – often voted the best album ever, somewhat excessively – they reinvented themselves again on Kid A and Amnesiac, ditching guitars and conventional song structures for elusive, electronica-based music awash with headphone sounds. The suspicion remains that there was one very good album stretched thin over these two slightly patchy ones, but they were still an achievement, seeing the band tackle awkward genres while becoming bigger than ever. How do you follow that?
Their answer seems to have been to cut loose a little. Saturday night's show in Dublin marks the start of a back-to-basics tour of small venues to promote a forthcoming sixth album, Hail to the Thief, the early word on which suggested a return to guitars, simpler songs and less obfuscatory lyrics (certain corners of an excitable music press made radical political claims for the album, the title being a stab at George Bush's electoral "win"). They've also announced a November arena tour that is a far cry from when they used their own circus tent three years ago, trying to avoid the branding associated with these kind of aircraft-hangar venues.
The anticipation at Dublin is palpable among those lucky enough to have snapped up tickets. But if the band are feeling any pressure, it doesn't show. The often scowlingly taciturn Thom Yorke ambles on with a big sheepish grin on his face, and the three new tracks that open the show go down a storm.
Perhaps the audience has heard them as internet downloads already, but the virtuoso flair of the songs is matched by an energetic muscularity that still feels instant. The single "There There" is a little flat on record, but its rolling, percussive rumble takes on a rhythmic warmth live, giving way to something scalding when Jonny Greenwood chips in with shards of glacial guitar.
"2 + 2 = 5" is better still, exploding midway into a complex rush of sci-fi sound and fury that sees the band working as one to nix any notion that Hail is less daring than its predecessors. Although the new songs are not a sea change comparable to that of Kid A, they are not a step back to OK Computer either. They hint at a more integrated Radiohead, complete with a spooked, Twilight Zone-ish feel that is distinct from anything they've done before. "The Gloaming" captures a trippy mood of paranoid disconnection to immersive effect, while "Sit down. Stand up" starts dreamily before bursting into a flurry of lightning-speed beats that's at once captivatingly fierce and hypnotically strange.
If Kid A found the band in danger of becoming the Jonny-and-Thom show, there is a taut focus here between the five members that suggests a band thrilled to be playing together. As bassist Colin Greenwood bounds about like a teenager and guitarist Ed O'Brien grins fit to burst, Jonny glowers over his electronic noise boxes and belching guitar with stormy intensity. As for Yorke, he's evolved into a highly energised frontman, singing with trembling passion, stomping like a raggedy doll and attacking his guitar in the anthemic "Just" with string-snapping force. Affable as he is, his streak of mischievous spite remains nicely withering. When the audience howls its approval for "Just", the set's oldest song, he sarcastically screams back in the mike at them.
Radiohead are not so much a band at an impasse as one playing with possibilities and unafraid of stretching an audience. They move between luminous dreamscapes, skittering electronic beats, warmly ambient mood music, avant-garde experimentation and rampant post-punk without showing any joins. No alarms then but plenty of surprises and an ability to take them places that outstrips any other stadium band for imagination. As a decimation of lingering doubts, this was an impeccable show.
Kevin Harley