Radiohead/ Teenage Fanclub
Congress Centre
Ottawa
August 20, 1997

Rating: 4/5

There are plenty of music acts out there that sell more records than Radiohead, but there are few groups whose music seems to mean more to their audience.

Witness what happened last night during the homestretch of the group's sold out show at the Congress Centre, as the quintet swept into the chorus of their breakthrough 1993 hit, "Creep".

The mist-filled stage was flooded with blinding white light, as singer Thom Yorke's body convulsed with another wave of spasms and his high, almost girlish voice was drowned out by the crowd of 5,000 (the biggest audience at the convention hall since the homecoming for Alanis Morissette, who counts Radiohead among her most-favorite bands), united by the fact that they find comfort in the song's expression of alienation. Talk about ironic.

Later, after an extended encore set, the steadfast crowd drowned out the canned music that usually signals its time to go home and convinced the group to return for a parting version of "High And Dry".

After taking to the stage accompanied by the computerized, chilling voice from "Fitter Happier" (from their new album, OK Computer), the set began with a drawn-out, moody piece before cold-cocking the crowd with a corrosive version of "Just". And for the two-hour set, the uneasy pace continued, with languid, atmospheric musical meanderings boxcar-ed together, interspersed with jolting assaults of noise.

He is truly a strange frontman, with the kind of slight figure that must have ensured he was last-picked for school football matches, and seizure-like body movements interspersed with guitar-god shape-throwing.

His songs get sympathetic support from a band that colors the melodies with hypnotic guitar textures and herky-jerky rhythms. Special mention must go to Jonny Greenwood, who was spotted using his head for leverage as he bent the neck of his guitar to achieve the right degree of distortion.

The tender, bleak "Fake Plastic Trees" was nicely contrasted by the gargantuan riff from "The Bends", while the sonar sound of "Planet Telex" bounced off "My Iron Lung". But the highlight of the night had to be "Paranoid Android", the multi-movement, symphonic epic that moves from folk-salsa to raunchy rave-up to quasi-spiritual and back again. Yorke's songs convey the sensory overload and uncertainty of modern living, and when we look back on 1997, chances are good we'll say it sounded a lot like Radiohead.

If the headliners are decidedly contemporary, then Scotland's Teenage Fanclub are gleefully stuck in the mid-'60s, a time when songs mattered more than gimmicks.

Their chiming guitars and deft harmonies got lost in a crude sound mix, but the winning charm of songs like "Start Again" and "Take The Long Way Round" - both from their new album Songs From Norther Britain - still shine.

"Sparky's Dream" was a giant delight, and Neil Jung's heartstopping hesitation in the chorus was a thrill to see and hear. Guitarist Norman Blake is rock's most genial compere, and with three gifted singers and songwriters, the Fannies are blessed with an embarrassment of talent.

-Paul Cantin

Ottawa Sun
21.08.97