re Radiohead having fun? It’s always so difficult to tell, after all. But that seems to be a smile playing around Thom’s lips as he introduces new track "Sail to the Moon" with the words “This is a hopeful song. We’ve got lots of hopeful songs actually, haven’t we boys?” And as he jerks around the stage like a demented marionette during the closing wig-out of "Sit Down. Stand Up" Thom appears like across like an excited child trying to dance before actually understanding rhythm.

On tonight’s evidence, new album Hail to the Thief is not going to be the ‘three minute pop song’ album spoken of in interviews. Opener and new single "There There" sets the tone for much of the first half hour, a rumbling build-up with Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood smashing out a brutish, insistent rhythm on pairs of standing toms.

What comes across most through this is that the development and ideas that we saw in Kid A and Amnesiac have been taken back and married to the more traditional songwriting values of the earlier albums. At times this can make for slightly unwieldy tracks: "2+2=5" keeps dipping and eventually descending into free-form frenzy without really having any initial structure to take apart.

Maybe we’ve become too accustomed to hearing bands with a tenth of Radiohead’s musicianship use white noise and ‘Free-with-every-Stooges-T-Shirt-bought’ attitude in lieu of playing properly, but it feels very odd to actually hear every instrument being pushed through sonic hoops during the wig-outs. What’s more, you can catch the words tumbling out of Thom’s voice, still sounding so broken it seems it has nothing left to give, throwing you with the aching clarity in every sudden swoop.

There’s proof that there’s still rock in them thar hills, though. New tracks "Backdrifts" and "Myxomatosis" are opportunities for Colin and Phil (who gets a chorus of Happy Birthday from the audience) to drive the band forward - loud, purposeful and, dare we say it, danceable?

owledge that they’re preaching to the converted allows Radiohead to take a large proportion of the set from the genius-or-shit last pair of albums. Stripping songs like "Morning Bell" down for a live setting reveals them as beautiful creations deserving a place alongside the more better known elements of their canon. A pitch-perfect take on "No Surprises" acts as the catalyst for a second-half that crackles with energy and moments of pure magic – the Gothic threat of "We Suck Young Blood" could go Hammer horror at any moment (‘Are you sweet?/Are you fresh?’ – well are you my pretty?) but belief and a marvellously untypical vocal hint at a future live fixture.

The songs you used to think were great ("My Iron Lung", "Paranoid Android", "Just") still sound as formidable as ever, and form a neat counterpoint to the newer works without making you wish it was 1997 rather than 2003. "Fake Plastic Trees" closes the second encore and, for a minute that will stay with me for the rest of my days, the entire theatre falls silent as Thom sings the final refrain. They may not rock the hardest, and there may be a few too many moments of head-nod noodle, but, for two hours, Radiohead still make you believe

Jim Patterson

The Stereo Effect
24.05.03