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8-25-03 // 10.20 am there's always a siren singing you to shipwreck For your perusal, a writeup of last night's Radiohead show. I wrote this for a mailing list I'm on, so apologies for the venue explanation, etc... ********************************** I've been an avid Radiohead fan since '94 when a high school friend lent me "The Bends", yet this was to be my first time seeing the band in concert. They've played St. Louis, my city, on tours for "The Bends" (opening for R.E.M.) and "OK Computer", but I always seemed to miss them due to work or school or being out of town. I also wasn't able to get tickets to a show in Chicago in the summer of '01, to what I suppose was an "Amnesiac" show, so as a result, I was especially psyched for this gig. So yesterday evening, armed with a belly full of Chinese food, myself, Erin and my good friend Ryan made our way to deepest suburbia in order to witness Smilin' Thom & Co.'s Good Time Happy Hour And Carnival Revue. When I say the venue is in the 'burbs, I'm not joking. It's so far out that it's not only past the airport, but it's about a mile away from the Missouri River, which forms the border with the next county altogether. Somehow this place still counts as St. Louis, even though it took me like half a hour to drive there. In any case, the place is called something ghastly like the UMB Bank Pavillion. It's your typically American corporate-branded ampitheater with gigantic ads everywhere. There's the stage, then a medium-sized section of seats under a shed-like roof, and after that is the vast terraced expanse of the lawn seats (these are my preferred seats). They're only seats in the sense that you sit your butt down on the grass, or a blanket if you've brought one. Lawn chairs aren't allowed, I assume so the venue can make money off their "rent one of our expensive lawn chairs" racket. In any case, this is the sort of place where a watery beer is ten bucks. 'Nuff said. We found a nice patch of lawn to lay out our blanket and settled in near the end of the opening band's set (traffic was a bitch, what can I say). Support was provided by Stephen Malkmus' (formerly of Pavement) new band The Jicks. Put kindly, they were not very good. They weren't offensive, per se, but they were bland. They brought to mind a slightly indie-fied Grateful Dead, and a handful of songs had a generic early-R.E.M. jangle to them. The finished their set and got a slight cheer, but mostly everyone was just happy they'd finished. Between-set music was classic reggae, which was rather strange but it seemed to go over well. This likely had something to do with the fact that a massive number of people seemed to be smoking pot. I mean, there's always pot at shows, especially these outdoor gigs. But on this night, it was everywhere. A couple of guys even stopped me at some point asking me if I had any "reefer". When I said that I didn't, they then asked me if I had "anything harder". Nice. I should have referred them to the blanket over to my right which was producing steady clouds of smoke that wafted over our way. Finally, the phalanx of roadies finished their setup work and Radiohead took the stage. They started out in near darkness, producing ominous, formless noise which eventually morphed into The Gloaming. A strange choice for a show opener, but it actually worked very well, setting the mood for the evening. It was a bit funny, however, as Thom (and maybe the rest of the band) sort of screwed up the start of the song, but they just kept going as if nothing had happened. 2+2=5 followed, provided a shot of much needed 'oomph'. It was at this point that I noticed Thom's voice seemed to be in fairly bad shape. He was consistently out of tune, and appeared to be having trouble hitting some of the high notes. He had no sustain in his voice, either. It was a bit worrisome, though thankfully after a few songs he seemed to get back on track. The rest of the show was overwhelmingly comprised of material from "Kid A", "Amnesiac", and "Hail To The Thief", which was just fine by me, as I quite rate those records. I was very impressed with the raw energy injected into many of the HTTT songs. Where I End And You Begin (my personal fave track from the LP) was even more stomping than the album version, There There was a nice, groovy way to end the main set (Thom dedicated the song to the "people out on the lawn whom we can't see because of the VIP seats in the way". He also went on to rant several times about the fact that the venue/promotion was done by Clear Channel), A Wolf At The Door was full of snarling, spat out vocals and manic drumming, and Myxomatosis, while not a particular album favorite of mine, roared to life in the encore. The only HTTF tune that I didn't think worked live was Sail To The Moon. On record, I've always felt it was a bit lightweight and boring, and in a live setting it only felt more so. The "Kid A"/"Amnesiac" material absolutely killed. I Might Be Wrong bounced along on a massive bassline, Knives Out was a nice slice of guitar pop in the midst of so much more 'heavy' material, Idioteque was its typically massive, excellent self, How To Disappear Completely was a nice breath of fresh air, and the closing combo of The National Anthem and Everything In Its Right place hit all the right spots. The former was still a force, despite the lack of the noisy, jazzy horns found on the LP, and the latter featured a strange, almost dancy arrangement, that when coupled with the weird light wall behind the band, actually worked better than it had any right to. There was also a nice mixture of 'oldies' -- "OK Computer" was represented by two of my faves Paranoid Android and Airbag, along with Climbing Up The Walls (not a favorite on record, but a killer live), and a rather listless No Surprises. "The Bends" was barely represented, with the band only turning in a rather pretty Bulletproof, and a rocktastic rendition of Just. No Fake Plastic Trees or Street Spirit for me, sadly, though despite the fact that I like "The Bends", I was more than alright with its relegated status. Oh, and it was nice to see Talk Show Host show up, as well. I love it when bands play b-sides at gigs. As a whole, the gig was all I'd expected it to be. Despite the crap Radiohead take in the press for being "arty" and "willfully obscure", they really are a classy, tight rock band in a live setting. Strip away the studio sheen and trickery and you're left with well played rock songs with a bit of an art/progressive mood and undertone. It's a brilliant mix of the experimental and the mainstream, and judging from the fact that the entire ampitheater exited to the parking lot buzzing and cheering, I'd say that the band more than did their job and managed to keep just about everyone happy. No love for the venue for the dismal parking situation, however. It took nearly an hour to move what couldn't have been more than a half mile from the lot back to the highway. The ampitheater is an abject failure in planning, as there's basically only one rather winding, narrow way to get in and out. The fact that it was built as part of a business park doesn't help. In any case, it only serves as a credit to Radiohead and the quality of their show that I didn't mind too much about sitting in my car not moving for a solid half hour afterwards. [setlist] 01 The Gloaming
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