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Radiohead- In Rainbows


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that's promising for this upcoming tour that they're playing some songs they haven't played in a while or at least much since their respective tours i.e;; Myxo/Where/Optimistic.

 

i hope they dig out We suck Young Blood - always wanted to see that live.

and i've yet to see Airbag - i've always wanted to see that for Thom's scream during the live version

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yeah, I thought the same thing. flying to houston for a show.

 

I'm holding my breath for 'black star' or 'let down' ...neither of which they say they like playing anymore, but BS was pulled out in 2006, so there's hope.

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Thom Yorke will eat you alive.

No. He will just go into a corner, cry and hug his fax machine.

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The opening show of the tour got a glowing review in today's Wall Street Journal:

 

A Band of Prowess and Ingenuity

By JIM FUSILLI

May 7, 2008; Page D9

West Palm Beach, Fla.

 

It doesn't get much better in modern rock than when Radiohead kicked off their tour at the Cruzan Amphitheatre here on Monday. Playing with passion, intensity and a joy their often-stoic demeanor conceals, they offered two-dozen wonderfully textured songs with daring musicianship and vivid invention. The show wasn't perfect, as befits an opening night. But it was brilliant.

The quintet of multi-instrumentalists, led by vocalist and lyricist Thom Yorke, relied heavily on their new album, "In Rainbows," opening and closing the first set with the ballads "All I Need" and "Videotape," respectively. If you need a demonstration of a band's level of confidence, book-ending a set with ballads, rather than raging rockers, is a pretty good one. They finished the evening with a controlled reading of "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", the lovely finale of their 1995 album "The Bends," offering it after a quietly intense rendition of "House of Cards" from "In Rainbows" that seemed to dissipate in the night air.

By now the band has developed an overarching sound that incorporates all phases of its 16-year recording career, including the grand rock ballads of "The Bends" and "OK Computer" and the experimental electronica of "Kid A." It's a blend that worked well on 2003's "Hail to the Thief," extraordinarily well on "In Rainbows" and in concert here. Songs like "Where I End and You Begin (The Sky Is Falling In)" from "Hail" and "Morning Bell" and "Everything in Its Right Place" from "Kid A" -- the latter perhaps the best performance of the night -- were part of a whole, rather than nods to different periods in a career. Throughout, Mr. Yorke's voice was wrapped in sheets of guitar sounds and electronic whirlwinds that approximated eerie, ethereal strings.

Radiohead's songs are built on the stuff of great rock: a killer rhythm section, with Phil Selway on drums and Colin Greenwood on bass. While Mr. Selway laid down crisp, complex patterns without changing posture or expression, Mr. Greenwood played with deceptive facility, often in the upper register, then beamed happily or nodded in knowing approval as the songs ended. Rhythm is the bedrock for Radiohead: On "There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)," Jonny Greenwood, Colin's younger brother, and Ed O'Brien put aside their guitars to accompany Mr. Selway by pounding tom-toms with mallets -- Mr. O'Brien tossed his to the eager crowd at the song's end. Later, Mr. Yorke played a second drum kit during "Bangers and Mash."

More often than not, Radiohead led with a three-guitar attack as Jonny Greenwood or Mr. Yorke introduces a musical figure the other guitarists toyed with by adding unexpected accents and harmonic colors. Guitars are a part of the orchestral sound: It wasn't until the evening's 19th song, "Just," that they deployed anything like a traditional rock guitar solo, and Mr. Greenwood cut it short after four bars. For most of the night, he joined in the rhythmic guitar attack, then retreated to multilayered parts on a variety of keyboards, his guitar in his lap for easy access.

Like the Beatles -- the only band with whom Radiohead can be compared for the arc of their career and their willingness to challenge their own legacy to an excellent result -- Radiohead has evolved to a point where their only influence is themselves and their quest to be exceptional. But Radiohead does what the Beatles couldn't during the late stages of their career -- they play their complex songs live, reproducing them to a degree, yet going beyond the recordings. From a distance, the band seems deliberately enigmatic -- rock is filled with such poseurs -- but in concert, they are deep within the music of the moment, as if wrapped in an invisible bubble of creativity. Thus, at times Radiohead seemed oblivious to the audience. But they were never off-putting toward their fans, who sang along and clapped rhythmic patterns from the recordings. Because they were reinventing the familiar, the band needed a subtle nod from Mr. Yorke or a cue from Jonny Greenwood, whose back is to his colleagues when he plays the ondes Martenot or other exotic electronic keyboards, to tell the other musicians to move on. When they brought a song to a new standard, such as they did here with a gorgeous "Bullet Proof. . . I Wish I Was," the young men glowed with muted pride.

Reinvention revealed the integrity of their compositions, particularly their melodies. Mr. Greenwood and Mr. Yorke performed "Faust Arp" on acoustic guitars, leaving behind the strings on the recorded version. "Exit Music (For a Film)," an anthem-like ballad from "OK Computer," rode on Mr. Yorke's self-control, his voice soaring within the maelstrom that built around him.

Even when they hit a rough patch, Radiohead revealed its character. During "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi," they lost their way and the song, in which electric guitars finger-pick three distinct patterns under a snappy rhythm, threatened to fall apart. By settling back into the groove, they managed to complete it. But Mr. Yorke wasn't satisfied. At the song's end, the diminutive singer ran to each band member and they agreed to do it again. The second time it was perfect. "We obviously didn't practice this enough," Mr. Yorke joked as the capacity crowd applauded wildly.

Throughout the evening, Mr. Yorke proved an agreeable host -- none of the other band members spoke to the audience. He's a charming, self-depreciating front man, which comes as a surprise after watching him seethe in one song, disappear into a dark lyric in the next and then spin wildly like a dancer at a rave in the next. "This one is kind of 'oldish,'" he said when introducing "Optimistic" from "Kid A." He made a quip about Miami that the audience here enjoyed, but he mostly stuck to the business at hand, which is leading the best rock band at work today through an incredible display of its prowess and ingenuity.

Mr. Fusilli is the Journal's rock and pop music critic. Write to him at jfusilli@wsj.com4.

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The opening show of the tour got a glowing review in today's Wall Street Journal:

 

A Band of Prowess and Ingenuity

By JIM FUSILLI

May 7, 2008; Page D9

West Palm Beach, Fla.

 

Like the Beatles -- the only band with whom Radiohead can be compared for the arc of their career and their willingness to challenge their own legacy to an excellent result -- Radiohead has evolved to a point where their only influence is themselves and their quest to be exceptional.

 

 

Holy fanboy review. This is above and beyond ridiculous. Radiohead doesn't even have the discography of Bowie or the Stones, let alone the Beatles.

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^^ Incredible pics. The blue one is now my desktop background. So the top one is from Idioteque and the lower from EIIRP?

 

Same here ... not sure how you could tell the songs - by what instruments everyone is playing?

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MHD was running "Radiohead - From The Basement" the other day. They did most of their new songs and threw in a couple from Kid A/Amnesiac. I always love hearing 'Optimistic'. Looked superb in HD.

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Same here ... not sure how you could tell the songs - by what instruments everyone is playing?

 

Yes'm. I am such a Radiohead nerd (and Wilco nerd for that matter) that I can know which song a band is playing by looking at who's playing what. And if I'm a little confused, the lighting is usually a dead give away.

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Yes'm. I am such a Radiohead nerd (and Wilco nerd for that matter) that I can know which song a band is playing by looking at who's playing what. And if I'm a little confused, the lighting is usually a dead give away.

 

Heebadah Sabadah.... NERD ALERT!

 

snoop_dogg_and_sour_nerds.jpg

 

but I secretly wish I had the same ability.

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Yes'm. I am such a Radiohead nerd (and Wilco nerd for that matter) that I can know which song a band is playing by looking at who's playing what. And if I'm a little confused, the lighting is usually a dead give away.

 

which song on the HTTT tour did thom have a little sampler he pushed and then danced around - backdrifts or the gloaming?

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>MHD was running "Radiohead - From The Basement" the other day. They did most of their new songs and threw in a couple from Kid A/Amnesiac. I always love hearing 'Optimistic'. Looked superb in HD.

 

Both the audio and video are up on Dime.

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