Radiohead/ Clinic
Victoria Park, Hackney
London
September 23, 2000

It's always good to see a pop group practising what they preach, and Radiohead, apparently admirers of No Logo, Naomi Klein's excellent compendium of anti-globalist strategies, are doing their bit to shake the walls of capitalism. Their new album Kid A, a record which frequently ditches their trademarks of vocals and guitars, is unlikely to stiffen the share price of whatever mega-corporation to which their label Parlophone is currently affiliated.

Despite the grumbles of a few aged and easily confused critics, Kid A, out next month, is instantly identifiable as the work of Britain's most cretinously eulogised rock combo. Anyone remotely familiar with the course of electronic (ie, popular) music over the last decade and a half will find nothing here to unsettle, or to be honest, overly impress them. But it's definitely amusing (not a term usually used in relation to Radiohead) to discover that large parts of the long awaited follow-up to the insanely overrated, mega-selling OK Computer sound like something knocked up in a bedroom, possibly in the former East Berlin, by a couple of computer literate boffins.

Cynics might, perhaps, suggest that touring before its release is purely a pre-emptive move, but although they play most of the record tonight, on stage it's not really so far from their familiar millennarian rock ballad style. Its opening track, "Everything In Its Right Place", sounding somehow reminiscent of something Orbital might have cooked up circa 1992 (only not as good) is especially fine, while the excellent "Optimistic", lightly sketched with a sharp beat, easily outdoes its recorded counterpart.

Noticeably many of the new songs are strangely inconclusive, really little more than unresolved jams – just the sort of stuff that bands struggling for material come up with. Quirky time signatures abound, such as the jerky arpeggios of "Limbo", while tonight's opener "The National Anthem", little more than a fuzz bassline with a few sound effects, is brutally effective without possessing any grace (or, sadly, the great horn parts which make it a standout on Kid A).

The MP3 generation love it all. The turgid "How To Disappear Completely" gets a great roar from this tentful of twenty-somethings, but old favourites like "Just", "Street Spirit" and the final singalong of "Karma Police", like Paul McCartney playing the piano at a wake, go down best, and such neatly structured, excitingly played songs are this band's forte. Thom Yorke's pompous whine could drive any neutral to distraction after half an hour, but Jonny Greenwood remains the best, least predictable lead guitarist around.

It's the contradictions that make Radiohead interesting. They may have eschewed sponsorship (and charged a sturdy £25 a ticket...) but there's one logo everywhere, worn on the T-shirts of the crowd. They deal with issues of communication, yet rarely acknowledge the audience. As for Yorke's declared fondness for the sounds of the once outré, now mainstream veteran electronica label Warp, today's charts are regularly visited by singles as sonically extreme as, say, Aaliyah's brilliant "Try Again". Radiohead are alright, but their idea of the future is most people's past.