Now the reason we’re all here. But first, an interminable 90-minute wait before Radiohead takes the stage. The girls behind us talk of claustrophobia. “And I’m not even a Radiohead fan. What am I doing here?” You and the other 20,000 clogging the front end. The sad truth is that most of these nitwits up here don’t even like the bands they are seeing. You can see it in the way they react to the music. Dumbfounded, mouth agape, standing stock-still like Muscovites gawking at fountains. To that we say – go to the back if that’s all this means to you. But, no, you push to the front. It’s a badge of honor to be a sheep these days.

Narcotizing reggae is played while we wait, to calm us, to keep us under control. Gigwise wants to hear the white noise they force on detainees at Guantanamo Bay, to separate the diehards from the poseurs. No luck. They’re here for the duration. And the nerve of these fools. Now, we’re not sure what method you employ in the UK, but, here in the US, the hot new way to show everyone around you that you are a complete and utter asshole is to order a pizza in a public setting where pizza does not belong. Just last month, Big Smoky and I saw this happen when a group of pusillanimous fat hipsters had a whole fucking pie delivered to their table in a Chicago bar called The Hungry Brain. Tonight on this field in Tennesse, a troupe of tanned pinhead yokels from Nashville is doing the same damn thing. And they’re standing directly in front of us. Directly behind us? Some idiot is doing a Jesus schtick. “Follow me, my children, through the wilderness.” His ploy to get closer to the stage. He gains a few disciples. They shove in front of us. The temerity of these bastards. Hells’ Angels, where are you when we need you? And you wonder why the world despises you, hippies. 

Holy shit, it’s here. Half-eight. On time. The stage lights dim. The roar rises. Chills down the backs of 80,000 necks burned red. Radiohead still open with “There, There.” Ed O’Brien at the lip of the stage, stone-faced, stoic, pounding those kettle drums into oblivion. The hairs on our necks stand on edge. “2+2 = 5” follows. Ecstasy. No lackadaisical phone-in performance here, Radiohead are at the top of their game, poised, professional, exacting, devastating. The big screen feedback is shot so well it doesn’t even matter that a fool holding the statue of a rabbit in the air ruins your sightline. A new song comes next – Thom at the height of his power, the embodiment of conviction. Thom Yorke, saint and angel, the cocksure cynosure with the power to keep 80,000 mouths shut and twice as many eyeballs focused on his every McCartney-with-epilepsy headbob. His spastic whirling dervish dance outdoes even the most dedicated hippie jig. 

From the first strummed chord of “Exit Music,” the entire place goes silent – the cretins, the cows, the humming ice trucks, the fireworks, bands on other stages – everything quiet as a tomb. Above our heads, airplanes glide through the night sky in silence. “He has more power than the Pope,” Big Smoky tells me, after the show is over. “You know what else?” adds Gigwise. “His voice never wavers. Listen to Elton John circa ‘Daniel’. Listen to him today.  Yeah, I know the songs suck, but check out his voice. It got deeper, didn’t it?”

“Every singer’s voice gets deeper.”

“Not Thom Yorke. Thom Yorke is on an even keel. It’s incredible.” 

“He’s an alien.”

“Extraterrestrial.” 

“A spirit.” 

“Ethereal.” 

On the bad side, the big screens go blank halfway through “Exit Music,” killing such an unbelievable amount of momentum. Maybe for the best. If that momentum crested, we’d have all been the victims of a mega-Roskilde-style stampede of trapped bodies, stomped into the field below. After a few songs, they get the screens working again but it’s not the same footage as when we started. Now we’ve fragmented portraits, still shots on each band member.  Phil Selway looking dapper in a white jacket at the drum kit. Johnny Greenwood in a T-shirt that reads “Lifeguard.” For “You and Whose Army,” however, it all goes back to Thom, a close-up so severe that, at first, all we see are his eyes, that unmistakable leer. The camera pulls away to reveal that he has his back to the crowd, that we’re all behind him, and we’re sending this message out to you, leaders of the free world. Flat out brilliant. The opening lyrics of “The National Anthem” communicate the thought patterns of any festival-goer, past, present, and future. “Idiotheque” delights. 

There is a stunning subdued encore, piano-based, of “Pyramid Song,” “Like Spinning Plates,” and “Fake Plastic Trees” that breaks the hearts of all within earshot. Had they gone on to do “Sail to the Moon,” Gigwise would have been reduced to a weepy, blubbering blouse. The only new song Thom names, “Bodysnatchers,” from a lyrical standpoint, ties the “21st century” to the “lights going out for you and me.” 

It all ends, as scheduled, at eleven. Two and one half-hours after it started. The slow march to freedom follows, one thwarted by dolts that: 1). Stand in our way, still facing the stage, 2). Veer perpendicular to the general flow, and, 3). Sit on the ground just waiting to be kicked, stamped, and crushed. Selfish asshole hippies, I don’t care how much acid you ingested, there is no call for this behavior. A clear patch of grass found, Big Smoky and Gigwise set our French chairs down on the ground, have a beer, and watch the masses pass in front of us, including the Quiz Bowl Champion, a kid so deranged and deluded that he is talking, eyes shut, to no one at all – no one, yet at the same time, everyone. A ghastly monologue that sees him state, more than once, “I am the biggest star in the world,” adding, “I will never forget Bonnaroo.” He emphasis each point with a pelvic thrust. 

Radiohead obviates anything that follows. There could be one hundred naked stoner hippies hanging off the Ferris wheel like Indians on the train to Bombay, it wouldn’t matter. Seeing the Dresden Dolls kabuki theatrics after this is like watching a Take That reunion show. Bedtime.