No Substitute

There is absolutely no substitute for live music.  None.  As someone who attends a fair amount of concerts, I always lamented the fact that I had never before seen Radiohead.  The breadth of this regret is now multiplied.  I am able to accurately quantify this regret, however, only because I was there last night in Mansfield, and for that I am actually grateful.      

Setlist:

01. Reckoner (In Rainbows)
02. Optimistic (Kid A)
03. There There (Hail to the Thief)
04. 15 Step (In Rainbows)
05. Kid A (Kid A)
06. Nude (In Rainbows)
07. All I Need (In Rainbows)
08. The Gloaming (Hail to the Thief)
09. The National Anthem (Kid A)
10. Videotape (In Rainbows)
11. Jigsaw Falling Into Place (In Rainbows)
12. The Bends (The Bends)
13. Faust Arp (In Rainbows)
14. Weird Fishes/ Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
15. Everything In Its Right Place (Kid A)
16. Exit Music (OK Computer)
17. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)

Encore 1:

18. House of Cards (In Rainbows)
19. I Might Be Wrong (Amnesiac)
20. Paranoid Android (OK Computer)
21. A Wolf At The Door (Hail to the Thief)
22. How To Disappear Completely (Kid A)

Encore 2:

23. Cymbal Rush (The Eraser - Thom Yorke)
24. Karma Police (OK Computer)
25. Idioteque (Kid A)

(Studio album chronology: Pablo Honey, The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, and In Rainbows)

In front of a fervent but docile full house at the Comcast Center, Radiohead delivered a show teeming with some of the contradictions I had expected and hoped for.  They filled a 20,000 capacity amphitheater that I associate more with stadium acts like Bon Jovi and 3 Doors Down, (acts completely devoid of any nuance or subtlety), and purposefully meandered through a set list comprised mostly of their least accessible material; stuff a band shouldn't be able to pull off in such a venue, much less to the delight of 20,000 mongoloids.   And they not only pulled it off, they looked and sounded as though they were in their natural habitat.  In fact, based upon Thom York's frenetic stage presence -- singing eyes closed, head twiddling back and forth around the mic, giving way to enraptured dancing that only he can pull off -- their natural habitat might just be another planet.    

A galaxy away from Pablo Honey as a band, an easy observation from set list alone, what is most striking about Radiohead jams, especially as compared to the prolonged instrumental passages of most other rock acts, is the sampling, the club beat experimentation, and the appreciation for and full exploitation of crescendo and decrescendo. all the while operating within a framework that sometimes felt classical, while at others was decidedly ladder-day Miles Davis, or avante-noise, but that is always without hint of the blues.  It was this realization, and the subsequent juxtaposition in fact, that made the opening chords of The Bends, situated masterfully in the middle of the show, a sledgehammer and a refreshing change of pace in the same breath.  

The entire experience was enhanced by giant flat screen televisions beside the stage and in front of the "lawn" seats, each split into quadrants, each quadrant focused on a different band member, and a stage backdrop lined with 50 or so giant tubes (see above), perhaps 2 and a half feet in diameter, that stretched from the floor to the roof, on which glow stick colors danced up and down, disappearing, reappearing, and changing color in keeping with the pace and mood of the music. 

The eye of the storm is undoubtedly Yorke's incredible voice, which is sometimes as jagged and loose lipped as the music swirling alongside or around it, while at other times is incomprehensibly languid and beautiful, casting itself gently above the billowing atmospherics and melodies of his bandmates.  

Remarkable.