Seeing Radiohead in concert confirms it: Right now, the band can just do no wrong.

Radiohead/ Handsome Boy Modeling School
Greek Theatre
Los Angeles
October 20, 2000

Radiohead has reached that envious point in their career when they seemingly can do no wrong, and all we can do is hope that they can make it last for as long as possible. Part of the secret of the band’s success, naturally, is having a collection of superb material, but more important is an ability - almost a sixth sense - to bring the larger world into perspective. When that happens - when a band seems to effortlessly tap into a culture’s emotional underpinnings - the results are magical, and, by nature, temporary. After all, the world keeps changing, and hot-button issues get replaced by newer ones. But for right now, anyway, Radiohead is dealing with the very same concerns we’re all struggling with.

The band’s brief North American tour is in support of Kid A, their much-anticipated followup to OK Computer, a phenomenally affecting work - a record so emotionally and thematically cohesive that people incorrectly describe it as a concept album. But OK Computer and Kid A - and, hell, the band’s entire career to this juncture - have been systematic, musically adventurous explorations into the worth of people in a technological age. Their critics get on them for being too glum, for too emphatically embracing the conventions of progressive rock and Pink Floyd. But to hear Radiohead’s body of work at a recent L.A. show is to recognize that the group’s material has a passionate, thoughtful center that those earlier influences rarely displayed.

In retrospect, Radiohead, a product of the ‘90s, was destined to be huge at the dividing lines between the 20th and the 21st century. Roughly 10 years ago, U2’s Zoo TV tour acknowledged the decade’s legacy in advance - namely that entertainment and reality were becoming blurred forms of stimuli. Rather than take it seriously, though, U2 chose to laugh at the consequences instead of getting indignant.

By contrast, Nirvana and grunge were meant to be a back-to-basics examination of repressed desires. Although U2 started incorporating samples and drum machines, these bands were bands, using their purity and devotion to traditional rock n’ roll as selling points. But the ‘90s were going to be about sensation and thrill and nonstop access to everything all the time - U2 may have stumbled somewhat after Achtung Baby, but they certainly understood where we were heading and how we would react to it. Since then, Beck has been our posterboy for that ironic acceptance of a society that has unlimited amounts of technology at its disposal. But like U2, Beck (and several techno stars to follow) tried to make peace with the demands of a world blessed with boundless scientific and hi-tech breakthroughs but that lacked any sort of privacy or security.

Meanwhile, the members of Radiohead, whose first hit “Creep” came out at the height of grunge, have slowly been developing into a great band, but their grand theme is what makes them so riveting right now - and made their frequently dynamic show so essential to understanding their significance. At a time when we’re becoming more and more enraptured with our machines and devices, Radiohead writes songs about the impact these luxuries have on us as individuals. Without the condescending elitism that has crippled humanist activists since the days of Henry David Thoreau, lead singer Thom Yorke and his bandmates are looking at the nasty byproducts of an industrialized, competitive age - ruthless ambition, paranoia, chronic dissatisfaction. By dealing in specifics, by creating recognizable narrators who are as empathetic as they are lost - and by not endlessly sermonizing in a ham-fisted way like Rage Against the Machine - Radiohead is making the most penetrating social commentary in rock music today.

A political, issue-oriented message can prove wearying in pop if the music falters or if the messengers are humorless. In the former, Radiohead has never had a problem. The band’s early records showed a promising, but still awkward, U.K. outfit trying to find their place amongst the Blurs and Oasises. But with OK Computer, their third release, the group fashioned an exhilarating, layered sound that straddled the conventions of classic rock and the emerging electronica scene. And Kid A, a challenging but by no means indecipherable disc, pushes the envelope - and the band’s theme - even further.

And as far as the supposed lack of a sense of humor, Yorke’s performance at the show set that record straight.

At a previous gig in Toronto and on Saturday Night Live, Yorke, the band’s most recognizable figure, stumbled a bit by trying to be too arty and prickly. (At the Toronto show, he reportedly introduced each song by saying that a different huge, international corporation was sponsoring it. Yes, Thom, we got the point.) In welcome contrast, the band’s L.A. performance was a disciplined, indulgent-free journey through the band’s canon. Yorke relied very little on theatrics, although his deformed right eye and overall unhandsome looks certainly personify the disenfranchisement within the songs.

For the most part, Yorke and fellow guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien emphasized the dependable melodies and therapeutic assault within the material. When you’re a group experimenting more and more with the interplay of technology and humanity, there’s an undeniable temptation to bombard the audience with sound effects and other dissonance to overstate the point and turn off the converted. (Kid A’s detractors incorrectly try to pin that criticism on the album.) But other than an overly busy collection of samples on the stark “Climbing Up the Walls,” Radiohead demonstrated that experiments are all fine and good, but it’s the songs that matter. As avant-garde as the band does become at times, they haven’t forgotten that people still hum the tune and not the deeper implications.

And, oh, those tunes. Though the familiar selections from The Bends and OK Computer still connect with feeling and nuance, the eight songs taken from Kid A equally reverberated, even without the enormous studio production behind them. Granted, Kid A doesn’t have as many bulls-eyes as OK Computer - which is part of the point, considering the new album is meant to be a closer, impressionistic look at how individuality can’t survive in the modern age. Still, Radiohead’s risks have paid off when these unconventional songs can work on their own in concert.

The show opener, “The National Anthem,” powered by Colin Greenwood’s inhuman, merciless bassline, plainly set the night’s tone. As Yorke violently flailed around, his lyrics gave voice to unspeakable levels of tension and dread; it was the sound of a person trying desperately to fight his way free of an information overload. As the group blasted out vehement renditions of “Idioteque” and “Optimistic,” it brought to mind the same sort of creeping ennui that formed the center of Radiohead’s tedious 1999 concert documentary, Meeting People Is Easy. Disappointingly, the film unsuccessfully tried to create a visual equivalent to the band’s mixed emotions about conquering the world artistically while being slowly undone by all the evils they had chronicled - the ravenous touring, the nonstop media, the feeling that they ought to be happy but... .

The bitter, hostile tone of the film was nowhere in evidence at the L.A. stop. Clearly the time off from the road has helped the band’s disposition. Maybe only playing a few shows has as well. Whatever the reason, Radiohead sure didn’t seem like a grumpy band that had just dropped a difficult record onto the public and were just sick to death of the whole thing. Rather, they powered through the songs - the melancholy “How to Disappear Completely,” the ecstatic “Airbag,” the distraught “My Iron Lung.” Having already proven themselves, the band used the show merely to strengthen their position, to illustrate the overpowering outreach of their worldview.

As the show reached its conclusion, what was emphatically clear is that Radiohead may be pessimistic about our age, but they are not glum or hopeless. When Yorke dedicated “Just” for anyone who ever thought about killing himself, a cynic would surely have suggested that several of the band’s songs could have fit that description. But “Just” - like the haunting, moving “No Surprises” and the resilient “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” - is fundamentally a song about looking for answers. Yorke’s sharp, soulful delivery highlights the battle between recognizing the bleakness and still finding a reason to go on. He embodies that contradiction with his frightening face and aching voice.

Throughout, the crowd remained intimately involved with the songs. They cheered the plaintive openness of “Fake Plastic Trees” and the operatic fervor of “Paranoid Android” as rallying cries against complacency and apathy. Surely, Radiohead’s intelligent, introspective lyrics are well matched by a large arena-rock sound, allowing the band to command a large following that just happens to be somewhat selective in its tastes. (Opening act Handsome Boy Modeling School echoed both Radiohead’s and the crowd’s appreciation for a sophisticated musical approach.) But for supposedly such a downer of a group, the night maintained a uniform level of warmth and camaraderie that is rare in a decent-sized open-air venue. Kid A’s tone is frequently ominous, but the songs - and the show - embrace you.

Now that Radiohead is at the top, of course, there is nowhere to go but down. Times will change, some other act will capture the zeitgeist, or Radiohead will just start making mediocre records. Regardless, the band has done a fabulous job of making their moment count. Instead of grasping onto irony or traditionalism, Yorke and his band have bravely attempted to dissect this era with a sound whose influence can be felt in the cottage industry of atmospheric bands making their way up the indie ranks.

Someone will replace Radiohead. Whoever it is, let them be as honest and exhilarating as this group has been.

-Tim Grierson

Ironminds
26.10.00