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Radiohead :: 14 May 2008 :: St. Louis, MO

Andre Perry :: 4 June 2008 |                

I first saw Radiohead in 2001 on the Amnesiac tour as a band in transition: from arena guitar rockers to electronic rock progressives, their recorded output at the time (generally) marked a shift in (general) musical direction. So, the live band found itself having to balance between equally amazing versions of itself, staunchly challenging the “old” Radiohead (with guitars) to reconcile with the “new” Radiohead (with all sorts of electronic gear and programmed beats). As I saw the live band develop in subsequent years—2003, 2004, 2006, and even a Thom Yorke solo set—the “new” Radiohead became less an anomaly and more the standard. Various reviews of In Rainbows (2007) suggested the same, that the band had finally settled into their post-90s skin. What I saw in St. Louis, Missouri certainly confirmed these observations. In fact, it was the most headstrong Radiohead set I’ve ever witnessed: while they played songs from every album except 1993’s Pablo Honey, it was clear they had come to support and to rock the hell (with or without guitars) out of In Rainbows and their other post-millennial fare.

When the band played pre-Kid A music it often came across as an act of nostalgia, done in earnest but matter-of-factly, smiling, almost acknowledging that they were playing the “greatest hits.” They ripped out “Airbag” early on in the set but it just didn’t seem half as fresh as the slow-burning opener “All I Need” and “Fake Plastic Trees,” the cornerstone ballad of their first encore set, was beautiful, but when I looked behind me to gaze at the lawn, an ocean of lighters glittered back: it felt a bit like high school. Alternately, songs like “Kid A” (radically re-worked for this performance) and “The Gloaming” downright sparkled as both live-“band” songs as well as works deeply influenced by all manner of electronica. “Kid A” was an ambient masterpiece with Jonny Greenwood sitting down at the xylophone (I think, or maybe it was a glockenspiel), clinking away at the song’s primary riff as Yorke took to the lyrics with a clarity absent from the album version. “The Gloaming,” again, was a minimal techno head-bobber, coming more alive than it ever could on record; when the chorus kicked in, Colin Greenwood was playing a totally nasty bass line alongside the glitch beats and people, Radiohead fans yeah, were dancing in the crowd.

There were times when Ed O’Brien, Yorke, and Jonny Greenwood dueled with three guitars and there was even the touching folkie moment of Jonny Greenwood and Yorke onstage—just the two of them—huddled together with acoustic guitars, doing a live version of “Faust Arp.” Still, the newer “rock” songs rely less on the verse/chorus hooks and guitar chords of The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997) and more on jazz figures, elliptical patterns, elusive vocal melodies. These days, Radiohead is a band with a tendency for tight instrumental grooving, creating a hypnotic sound with interlocking guitar lines and complex polyrhythms. In Rainbows‘ songs benefit from this sort of energy in the live setting; those around me freaked out every time a programmed beat hit them from the loudspeakers then looked onstage to find the band thrashing as hard as they could to match the ferocity of the electronics. It was riveting to watch the guitarists trading licks on the vicious “Bodysnatchers,” a song that seemed to be perpetually moving forward, pushing the guitars to the edges of overdriven noise.

The St. Louis performance also confirmed that every member of Radiohead remains a secret weapon. Despite the music’s complexity—I mean, just try to piece together how five guys architect a song as schizophrenic and perfect as “15 Step”—bassist and drummer, Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway respectively, held everything in place—Greenwood with his intricate and increasingly funky bass work and Selway with his locked-in precision that had me looking to see which beats were his and which were programmed. The amount of action between the frontline musicians, too, was astonishing. O’Brien, Jonny Greenwood, and Yorke were electrical charges shooting around the stage. Yorke could be singing, playing drums (“Bangers and Mash”), dancing his face off (“Idioteque”), and then sitting down at the piano (“You and Whose Army”), a tough dude to keep up with. Jonny proved capable of ripping through fantastic solos and then moving over to the Rhodes within the same song (“Paranoid Android”). Then you’d look up and he’d be hovering over his laptop like the dude from the Field.

O’Brien might have been the most interesting and underrated member to follow; because he’s so calm it’s easy to forget how much noise he makes. On “15 Step” he played his guitar for the first part of the song and then retreated to the back of the stage. He reemerged with a little electronic box and then, during the song’s scuzz-and-blip-heavy outro, proceeded to nonchalantly meander around the stage like it was an afternoon walk, punching little buttons, creating little beats and noises and triggering that marvelous sample of school children screaming. His best moment was during the “rain down” section of “Paranoid Android” when he patiently stood in the background nodding his head as the band played on. He eventually stepped up to the mic and started singing in harmony with Yorke. O’Brien was stunning and people in the audience were standing with their mouths open when they heard this beautiful voice beaming out of someone else other than the ubiquitous frontman.

Elsewhere, it was refreshing to hear “Everything in its Right Place” transformed into a middle-of-set piece rather than as the closing it’s manifest as for several years now. The second and final encore of the evening treated us to “Pyramid Song,” “House of Cards,” and show-closer “Paranoid Android.” Of all the pre-Kid A songs, “Paranoid Android” felt most immediate, as if it belonged with the rest of the newer material, bringing the show to a crushing end. Yet when I left this show, all I had in my mind was In Rainbows. There wasn’t a song from that album—and they played the whole thing—that didn’t fascinate me in its live form. “Reckoner” and “15 Step” were personal favorites but even “House of Cards,” which, along with “4 Minute Warning” (from In Rainbows Disc 2), I had always pegged as a Damon Albarn rip-off, was slow and captivating. Dare I even say…sexy? I spent the week after the show listening to the new record over and over, enjoying the best tracks and reconsidering the ones I had dismissed. In St. Louis they had earned every damn cent of that ticket price and its accompanying offensive Ticketmaster processing fee. And while I’m not privy to spending $75 (I got actual seats this time) on concert tickets very often, I also felt a craving, unlike I’ve ever felt before, to try to catch the band on another one of their tour stops just to see them re-create that energy onstage, be it the “new” band or “old.”

*****

Set List:

1. All I Need
2. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
3. Airbag
4. 15 Step
5. Nude
6. Kid A
7. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
8. The Gloaming
9. You And Whose Army?
10. Idioteque
11. Faust Arp
12. Videotape
13. Everything In Its Right Place
14. Reckoner
15. Optimistic
16. Bangers + Mash
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore #1:
18. Exit Music (For A Film)
19. Myxomatosis
20. My Iron Lung
21. There There
22. Fake Plastic Trees

Encore #2:
23. Pyramid Song
24. House Of Cards
25. Paranoid Android