Rating: 5/5

Some have complained of the recent Radiohead world tour. It is performed in a tent. A big, blue, logo-free one at that, making it a non-sponsored event. However, obviously this alone can't be the reason of many-a-fan's discontent - performing live in this quite incredible structure inevitably commands a particularly demanding ticket price, made especially worse when considering there's only one support act too.

However, as the show's last song echoes through the residential tower blocks of East End London, the cheers from the ten thousand strong sold out crowd say it all - it was well worth coughing up those extra few pennies for seeing them. Having to open early, assumingly due to council restraints, Thom, Ed, Phil, Jonny and Colin walk on and the shape of the tent is more evident; almost like a hexagon in the middle, the stage is perched in the centre of one side. The ground dips at the front allowing the people at the back to see everything in its entirety and if that still wasn't enough, there were six huge TV-screens, of purposely different sizes for effect, showing all to the folk who don't like pogoing at the front. To add to the experience, Radiohead rattled their way through a greatest hits show, which saw them also concentrate on performing the difficult bits from their current work, Kid A, which turns out to provide them with their most striking and exciting live sound.

Opening with new material, the band soon bowed down to the audience, giving them exactly what they wanted, pushing all the right buttons with the bellowing 'Lucky' and the still raucous, fit-inducing fury of 'My Iron Lung' within the first few minutes. Frontman Thom Yorke, keeping words to a minimum ('I've said too much already… I don't want anymore shit being said'), is still as enigmatic as he was in the days when he sported a suspect looking blonde mullet (displayed in its full beauty in the shown unofficial programme, which was sold at the event). His voice just trailed into the night skies beyond the ceiling of this big top, amidst the flailing lights waving in the air, allowing this whole object to appear as if it's landed from another planet.

Disco-romp 'Idioteque' is their finest track to date surely, all loops and beats swirling around an Underworld vocal enabling it to receive the largest applause of the occasion. Choosing to continue on a high, Jonny strummed out the intro to an anthemic 'Just', before dropping us off into the asteroid belt of 'Everything in its Right Place', allowing all to stomp and clap along to a keyboard and bass hugging current album-opener. You know you must be on to something not shabby also when the reaction from the crowd is as celebratory of the arrival of old album tracks as they are of top ten singles. OK Computer's 'Airbag' and 'Exit Music' remain vital inclusions in the set as does the ever perfect 'The Bends'.

Sadly, calls of 'Fake Plastic Trees' don't encourage the band to grant it a performance who instead choose to pluck away at the haunting 'Street Spirit' and piano-led new track 'Egyptian Song'. Rounding off the two hour and a quarter show with the chilled sounds of a 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' and beautiful 'Karma Police', the crowd had by now lost it totally, singing every note whilst residents trying to get to sleep in the local area wished we all shut up.

Another set highlight from earlier in the evening was the looming, brooding and bass-driven 'Climbing Up the Wall', sporting a yellow lazer light in the background of the stage. Like that light which flickered uncontrollably behind the stage as if it was there for a life-support machine, the Radiohead performance of 2000 proves that there is indeed life left in this band and it's impossible to imagine when there won't be. In fact, my bet is that the day the importance of Radiohead's music fades out, is the same moment that the world has died.

RockFeedBack
10.01