Radiohead. Say this band's name to anyone who has a mild interest in music and you’re more then likely to spark off some kind of argument. Over the fifteen years that Radiohead have been going, we’ve been subjected to all sorts of different sounds.
In the beginning Radiohead did nothing to really capture anybody’s imagination, with their only real dint in the music being Creep. You know Creep. It’s the one where he says "fuck" a few times. Soon came The Bends, Radiohead’s second album and the one that started to grab us by the balls. Combining clever music videos with pleasant songs gave Radiohead the praise they deserved. But when OK Computer came along, Radiohead were propelled in to the limelight and the world took notice of them and their wonk-eyed Thom Yorke. They had it all in that album, each song regarded as a masterpiece and the album as a whole is thought of by critics as one of the best albums in the world. Ever. But after that, things kind of went downhill.
Instead of keeping the trend with OK Computer, along came the band's fourth album Kid A. But it didn’t quite come up to expectation. It seemed like the guitars had all been abandoned and Radiohead wanted to become a mixture of Aphex Twin and Underworld. Failing badly. Whilst it was listenable, it scared many people away. The electronic stuff just wasn’t working. But this didn’t stop them doing the same with fifth album Amnesiac. It was only with their last effort – Hail To The Thief – that Radiohead have shown more of an interest in guitars and less interest in bleeps and skronks. But Thom Yorke has continued making undanceable dance music with his solo effort The Eraser. It’s up for an award named after a planet or something. We’ve already rated its chances, but don’t take our word for it.
So when hecklerspray traveled to Scotland to see Radiohead, we ended up in Edinburgh on a mild night, full of pissed Scottish people, stupidly expensive merchandise and food so disgusting you wouldn’t feed it to your dog. We really didn’t know what we were going to get from Radiohead at that night’s gig. With such a mixture of songs to play, we could be treated to anything from acoustic favorites to festival sing-alongs.
Usually at this point we’d blab on about the support act, but we er… accidentally missed Beck due to our poor navigation around Edinburgh and the lack of car parking spaces. Oh well.
To our surprise, Radiohead graced the stage at 8.15pm and didn’t fanny around with any introductions or filler songs. They got in to the spirit by opening with Airbag. A guitar-heavy track that got the crowd moving and well in to the swing of things. We think this actually worked to well, as during the next few songs (even the quieter ones) there was constant moshing and crowd surfing, resulting in many a five-foot-high indiegirl to feel out of place and run to the back for safety.
Yorkie himself even noticed this and stopped halfway through Morning Bell to tell the crowd to behave and that this wasn’t the place for moshing. Fair play on his part we say. We’re always up for a little bit of crowd activity, but not when there’s people sprawled all over the floor and close to getting vital body parts crushed to pieces. We were also privileged to hear some brand spanking new Radiohead tracks – three in total. We have no idea what there called, but each one sounds promising and hopefully an indication back to the OK Computer days. One track in particular started very slowly on the piano but was constantly having extra layers of noise added to it throughout its course.
The rest of the set was pretty much ordinary. All the favorites were there to keep the fans happy, but if you were one of the hardcore Radiohead lovers it may not have been the ideal gig for you. A few rarities were included that we didn’t think would be there. This includes our personal highlight of the night which was the gorgeous Fake Plastic Trees. If that wasn’t enough for us, the very last song of the night was Creep. It’s the song that so many people want to hear live but rarely does so. We're not sure why not. But based on the crowd's reaction it should surely get played more often. Thom hardly needed to sing the words, as 25,000 people were doing that for him!
Here at hecklerspray we can recommend a Radiohead live performance. We may get sick of Thom Yorke winging on about the state of the world or some other moral issue but when he does what he’s best at, its an unforgettable live performance. It’s not just the energy of five blokes on stage rattling off some songs for a few hours, but it’s the thought of the visual aspect as well. Ten giant screens hung as a backdrop throughout the night, each one linked to a camera on stage. So even if you were stuck at the back, you could easily see what each member of the band was doing during a certain song. Be it strumming away on a guitar or playing the piano.
We await to see what they’ll come up with next…
[story by Matthew Laidlow]
Rachel says
Hello there.
Laughed alot at the ‘five foot indie girl’ bit. I did infact run for cover, but I was only able to get out when Thom stopped mid morning bell.
If you are interested, I have uploaded the entire gig for listening and downloading.
Radiohead: Meadowbank Stadium, Edinburgh, 22.08.2006