Gig Review

Radiohead were awesome! Now I'm not a big fan of the stadium-style show, and the radiohead ticket price was over my usual cut-off. While being fully in favour of buying entertainment, that kind of cover price can sting. Anyway - they started with some songs from Hail to the Thief, which I don't have, so the gig was just giving me a kind of big rock band vibe, without really stirring any emotions. Also there were some young 'uns next to me who had clearly dropped some party goodies, and had become intensely annoying with the smoking, chewing, sweating, chattering, incessent phone calling to friends, and the lighter (!) - word for new players: its really uncool to do the lighter thing these days. Its 2004 people.

But they know their craft those pommy boys, and throughout the next 90 min they managed to be totally in charge of the mood of 10,000 people. Awesome. Rock and Roll.

Some highlights:
- the giant digital flat-screens with the orange and green effect footage of Thom York shot from above
- the rendition of Fake PLastic Trees
- the live recreation of the always surprisingly musical bleeps and loops from Kid A/ Amnesiac.. it went all disco. How on earth do they do that?*
-Jonn Greenwood playing his computer touch-pad gizmo like a real instrument
- the totally memerising way Thom york put his face right up to the camera, and beamed out 50 times life size to the audience, his eyes and cheek filling the entire screen, then offered the screaming crowd back to itself.. (I guess you had to be there to get it)
- the sychronised drumming from 3 band members in (I think) "Climbing the walls".
- the perfectly timed encores - b/c I'm really over the excessively long times bands wait these days, when you know they're going to do and encore, as the house lights are all still down..


*just checked the tripleJ online forum and disovered the tracks in question were "idioteque" and "everything in its right place"...

Concert rating: double plus good. They took some incredibly introspective music and made it something that ten thousand people could enjoy together. Respect.