Thanks to my boyfriend's undying love and respect for Radiohead, we ended up in the rare situation of having a handful of extra tickets. Also, thanks to his employer, he ended up about a spit's throw away from the sexy-ugly Thom Yorke himself. I was back in section 215, row RRR, seat 3,255.
Jerk.
Regardless of the nosebleeds and the squinting and the blindness caused by the intense lasers meant just for those in my section, this show was incredibly intense, brilliantly performed, and wonderfully void of conversation. It's great to go see a rock show and not talk to anyone. It's also great when the performers themselves don't insist on making witty banter with the audience, who come to see them play, not hear them quip. I was impressed with the simplicity of the "candid cameras" on all of the video screens, which captured each band member in real time in one of four or six quadrants. It was a really cool effect for those of us in the Way Back. Layers and layers of long white tubes full of LEDs hung from the rafters of the stage, and everyone had their own interpretation: windchimes, jellyfish, other invertebrates, dreadlocks. The coolest effect they were used for was the simulation of rain, which was impeccably timed to nature.
Radiohead has always been a purveyor of near-perfect musicianship. They make music and they don't bullshit about it. More importantly, they create what they want to create and they do it their way. I believe they are uncomplicated. Some may disagree with that, but I've always found them to be straightforward. Straight up and bad ass, for sure, but straightforward. I don't even find them weird anymore. As I stood in the Way Back with my arms at my sides, swaying to the slow bridge of Paranoid Android, I closed my eyes and a New England breeze poured over me, the start of an early fall. That's something you don't get when you're in the 10th row of section 1.
My favorite from In Rainbows, Videotape LIVE here.
Set list here.
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