Radiohead
What Stage, Bonnaroo Festival
Manchester, TN
June 17, 2006

I maneuvered out far enough to have a clear view and tried to find someplace where I wasn’t standing in front of some tiny girl who’d been waiting there for hours, eventually settling in the midst of a group of fairly tall, drunk ding-dongs who shouted “Woooo!” at moments completely unrelated to what was happening in the world around them. Then the lights went down, the crowd went ballistic, and Radiohead took the stage. To say that they were superb would be a criminal understatement. They were one hundred percent better than any other band I’ve seen. I fully expected to be disappointed, given how my expectations had bloomed over the years, but they were capable of pulling off all the contradictions their reputation entails. They were innovatively brilliant, but seemed human and reachable, they were intellectual but everything was deceptively simple, they were furiously artistic, but hardly ever ridiculous, and they were aloof but still likable. Unlike U2 they were able to communicate progressiveness without being preachy, unlike Coldplay they were searingly beautiful without ever being saccharine, and unlike almost all of the bands that follow in their wake they are innovative without being either incredibly derivative of what came before, or consisting of shallow tricks that have a six month shelf life.

The giant video screens on either side of the stage, which showed a fully cinematic version of the show spliced together from about 10 different camera angles, made for captivating viewing, but after the first three songs the screens started shorting out. For the first half of their set the screens would spring to life and then shut down again, then turn to color bars, then to video menus, then go dark, until finally they stabilized on what appeared to be a Radiohead-supplied feed from their onstage video project, which looked like security footage. I pictured all the Bonnaroo video staff running around some production facility on the back lot absolutely tearing their hair out at the catastrophic failure of their system during the headliner’s set, but then it occurred to me that maybe Radiohead had sabotaged the video feed as an artistic statement meant to convey alienation and ennui. Either way, the lack of giant video screens was a bummer at first, but it focused the crowd completely on the stage which ended up being a better concert experience.

I tried to imagine what Thom Yorke would think of the guy standing in front of me, weaving drunk, head-hankie askew on his blonde buzz-cut, sleeveless tie-die and Marlboro Lights, actually doing the dance of the seven veils, with the waving fingers and the snake-charmer swiveling, along to the song “Karma Police,” but then realized that it didn’t matter whether Thom Yorke got the creepy-crawlies and had to cover himself with antiseptic wet-wipes at the thought of this guy. Musicians can’t pick their fans, and Radiohead deservedly is loved by all.

They played two encores and seemed to bask in their glory, which was great to see, and during their final song the crowd started throwing glow sticks in the air by the thousands, in dozens of different colors, until it looked like a Hawaiian volcano erupting out of the sea of people. It was actually trippy, and cool. Viva Radiohead! Viva Bonnaroo!

Jon Roderick

CMJ
20.06.06