There are few bands I have tried harder to get into than
Radiohead. Emily Wellikoff first got me
interested in high school, Mike Schobel kept me going in college, and Matt DeCarlo
/ Luis Vila have kept me going since then.
Despite all this effort, however, the band never fully clicked for
me. There are songs I really enjoy on Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A,
Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, In Rainbows, and The King of Limbs, but no mind-blowing aha moment.
Radiohead’s Verizon Center concert was much the same: a lot
to like, not a lot to love. Part of the
issue was that Thom Yorke spent as much time on enunciation as he did on his
wardrobe or facial hair. The other part
was that they played very few of their old songs (as Luis rightly pointed out). Looking like a hobo and sounding like a
stoner is fine if you play “Fake Plastic Trees,” “Creep,” or “Karma
Police.” Those choices might actually
give you some indie cred. If you do not
play any of those songs, though, slogging through almost all of King of Limbs, you risk alienating your
audience.
Fortunately, the couple of non-Limbs songs they did play were really good. “Go to Sleep” had a solid guitar solo, “The Gloaming” / “Reckoner” had nice green-blue hues, and “Nude” had an incredible
vocal. The way Yorke caressed the ‘you’ll’
at the end was haunting – as was the inflection on ‘innocent’ in “Codex” and ‘arms’
in “Give Up the Ghost.” Yorke may make
it hard to discern most lyrics, but
the few that you can hear resonate.
The definite high point of the night was “Paranoid
Android.” Apparently I’d been living
under a rock and had not known it was one of their biggest songs. The transition from eerie to rock to eerie
and back to rock was totally unexpected – and an awesome way to end the show.
Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment