In his review of Radiohead’s Kid A, published last October in the New Yorker, British novelist Nick Hornby panned the album, writing it off as the work of self-indulgent artists, complaining that the record’s nuances demanded too much from the listener. As superficial a criticism as Hornby’s may be, it is an instructive one. The author of High Fidelity is correct in pointing out that Radiohead does not make music for a passive audience. And thank heavens for that. With last Sunday’s appearance at Thunderbird Stadium, the English quintet surely won over converts from the meaty mainstream, as the band’s studio wizardry gave way to an impassioned live presence. In Radiohead’s hands, rock ’n’ roll is alive and well.

Striding on-stage sporting mile-wide smiles, the band kicked off their two-hour set with Kid A’s rousing “National Anthem”, the recorded version’s horns giving way to a more conventional but no less frenetic rock arrangement. Next up was “Morning Bell”, driven by drummer Phil Selway’s 5/4 kick and Jonny Greenwood’s engine-revving guitar. Greenwood’s scalding axe work propelled “Lucky” and “Airbag” into the dreamy realm of tasteful prog rock, while elder brother Colin’s fuzz-distorted bass turned Amnesiac’s “Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box” into a danceable summertime stomp.

A poignant rendition of OK Computer’s “Exit Music” followed, perhaps the concert’s high point. As lead man Thom Yorke strummed his acoustic guitar and whispered the first verse, the crowd stood peacefully as the setting sun broke out from behind the clouds, nestling over the horizon and casting an amber glow over the stadium. Later the raucous three-song, three-guitar suite of “Permanent Daylight”, “Knives Out”, and “Just” demonstrated the band’s ability to, er, rock out. Further on, Jonny’s work on “Paranoid Android” embodied that song’s near-symphonic range as he manned, by turns, a synthesizer, a Fender Rhodes, and, most righteously, an electric guitar. As the main set neared its conclusion, a frenzied Yorke commanded the audience to join him in dancing to the glitch-beat stormer “Idioteque”.

The evening’s lone sour note came during the second encore as the band trotted out an old song, “Big Ideas”, a pedestrian number that concluded sloppily. Closing the evening with the defiant “Karma Police”, Radiohead displayed its accomplished musicianship once more, as Jonny plunked piano keys and Yorke’s voice wove in and out of Ed O’Brien’s subtle guitar backing. By night’s end, the band’s members had organized in no fewer than 15 permutations, handing off instruments to one another, enthralling the assembled, and proving that they are no mere studio nerds. Openers the Beta Band provided a playful counterpoint to Radiohead’s earnestness. Fronted by a kimono-garbed Steve Mason, the Glasgow quartet ambled through its 45-minute set with aplomb. What sort of a group is this? The sort that can make the term “riff-driven 21st-century psychedelic stoner rock” sound appealing. The sort whose “Dry the Rain” would make the all-time top 10 list of any weedhead worth his pipe. The sort whose upcoming sophomore long-player (Hotshots II) is soon to go into heavy rotation at this reviewer’s home.

-Martin Turenne

Georgia Straight
26.06.01