Radiohead
Coliseu do Porto
Porto
July 26, 2002

On entering the Coliseu do Porto it’s obvious this won’t be a gig of the ilk Radiohead fans have witnessed before, the venue itself is something like a mini Brixton Academy and is usually accustomed to Opera. So tonight, for their third gig on a short Spanish/ Portuguese tour we get nine new songs, band led flamenco-style hand clapping, Colin dancing to "Paranoid Android," Johnny performing celebratory jumps onto stage for the final of three encores, crowd chants of “Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole!” and enough smiles for anyone who’s seen Grant Gee’s Meeting People is Easy to think it’s a different band on stage.

Radiohead come as close as they will ever come to bounding onto stage, Thom looking ecstatically happy and uncommonly relaxed. "There There" opens the set, Ed and Johnny augmenting Colin’s [sic] drums by pounding their own mini kits “Just ‘cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there… there, there” Thom confidently strains, a collective sigh of relief can almost be heard around the beautifully apt venue, the new stuff is good, it’s very, very good. You could say some of it ahem…rocks. Like a bastard infact, anyone with worries of Thom and Co. being consumed by their own arseholes to conduct phone sex with the Aphex Twin is sorely mistaken. Yup, Ladies and Gentlemen we have a comeback.

Thom gracefully informs us they will play seven new songs then it’s onto the old stuff. "Scatterbrain" follows, Thom guitar-less, hard to make out lyrics sounding something like “scatterbrain, any fool can be fooled”. "Wolf at The Door" has Thom reading from a lyric sheet as with most of the new part of the set, showing that some songs maybe still very new to the band. “I’ll keep the wolf from the door, then she calls me up” is the theme, semi-spoken words borrowing from Dylan's “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.

"Myxomatosis" is introduced as “another song about the plague”, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are evidently still riding close to the heels of Yorke. The song is a dirty blues riffing monster with Thom playing strap on keyboard, and for guitar geeks everywhere possibly the first time a member of Radiohead has been spotted strapping on Gibson Les Paul. The soaring lament of "Sail to The Moon" is next, dedicated to “all the people that came over” - unlike your average Portuguese local a large portion of the crowd is decidedly pale and pasty. Thom plays piano as with many of the new songs. “I spoke too soon, sail to the moon” goes the gorgeous refrain on what could become a Radiohead classic. "Up On The Ladder", sounding like a Bends-era tune with off-kilter rhythm section has Thom guitar-less again and going through the trademark confused monkey dance a la "Idioteque". Another storming slab of tunage. The “new” set is finished with the old yet unreleased "Lift", also outed during the ’97 world tour it’s the weakest of the new material and could be best left in the practise room, it’s disappointing to hear when the stunning desperation of “Big Ideas” lies neglected in the soon-to-be-recorded vaults.

Unlike the first show in Lisbon there is no inter-set break, as they fire into “I Might be Wrong” the crowd literally explodes and we get to sample what we will refer to as “The Portuguese Pogo”. What follows is an amazingly executed, near-perfect set played by a rejuvenated band at the height of their powers, we get a heart-stopping trio of “Lucky”, “Talk Show Host” and “Climbing up The Walls”, a disco-ball lit “Pyramid Song” and a note-perfect “Paranoid Android”. When the house lights come up during the climax of “Fake Plastic Trees” and people on the third floor are seen dancing like fitting monkeys it’s obvious it’s all signed and sealed. “Street Spirit” tails off to a close and it’s over. As anyone lucky enough to witness this or any other gig of this criminally short tour will tell you, Radiohead are undoubtedly the only band that truly deserve the overly used tag of life affirming.

The Stereo Effect
29.07.02