We're huge RH fans but, amazingly, until this concert we'd never seen them live. Man, have we been missing out! The show was part of an all-day outdoor festival in Liberty State Park near Jersey City, and there were lots of other bands on the bill. But really it was all about the mighty Radiohead. That's who everyone came to see. They performed a two-and-a-half hour set, with two encores, in front of 40,000 people, adorned by a stunning laser light show - and the most pristine sound quality we've ever heard at a concert anywhere. Seriously, it was like listening to raindrops pitter-patter on a crystal chandelier.
Or maybe we just noticed the sound because there was so little audience noise to compete with it. It was crazy - 40,000 people and you felt like you could hear a pin drop. Are RH concerts always like that? Not that the audience wasn't into it. Exactly the opposite: Everyone just seemed frozen in an awestruck trance, gazing at the beautiful musical spectacle in front of them.
Radiohead played every song on their new record, In Rainbows, and we were as happy hearing the new stuff as the old. That's how good the new material is. What other band can you say that about? It's been 15 years since their debut and 11 years since their masterpiece OK Computer - and they're still at the top of their game.
Goodies: Check out their soulful new single "House of Cards."
Radiohead, for me anyway, has really become THE band for this millenium. No other group captures that disjunction of modern life, where a person is both connected through techonolgy to everyone, yet totally alientated from them at the same time. That really came through on In Rainbows, which may be there best work since OK Computer, and in some ways surpasses it. Being free from a major label and making music for themselves for the 1st time, really liberated them, and they play with a passion they hadn't shown since maybe Kid A. But where Kid A excelled on a technical level, it's detached sensibility left me kind of cold. In Rainbows is infused with feeling, rarely more so than on my favorite track "All I Need" whose soaring finish still gives me chills.
Judging from your post, it sounds like you and the rest of the crowd was just stunned into silence. What other band can have that effect on a crowd?
JO
Posted by: JO | September 09, 2008 at 02:13 PM