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Review: Radiohead in Houston
HOUSTON — The only sound more deafening than the thunderous guitars at Radiohead’s sold-out show Saturday at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion was the roar of the 16,500 fans collectively screaming and applauding after every song. Executing a note-perfect 24-song cycle, the Oxford, England, art rockers used two hours to easily confirm their position as one of the top contemporary rock bands in the world.
Radiohead — Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar piano), Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, multi-instrumentalist), Ed O’Brien (guitar, backing vocals), Colin Greenwood (bass guitar, keyboards) and Phil Selway (drums, percussion) — played a mix of songs covering their entire discography. The set included tracks from their superior sophomore album “The Bends,” through their experimental electronica albums “Kid A” and “Hail To The Thief,” up to their now-infamous “pay-what-you-will” recent release “In Rainbows,” all played with immaculate sonic clarity.
Radiohead have managed to escape some of the usual band pitfalls (drugs, groupies, general hedonism), while using their longevity (all original five members began playing together in high school in 1986) to rise to the top of the rock ‘n’ roll heap over the past 20 years, selling more than 23 million albums in the process. Radiohead has more than 200 songs to pull from at any given moment, excluding cover songs, making them a band with real depth.
Yorke and band stretched their arms and legs with knowing smiles before kicking off the set with “15 Step,” the first of numerous deep cuts from “In Rainbows.” The song showcases the template for the band’s return to their peak creative powers: Yorke’s pithy scattershot lyrics confronting 21st-century alienation amid technology, jazz modes, futurist and hip-hop breakbeats, a dual-guitar attack and a rhythm section that balances creativity with beats that move butts.
Saturday’s concert proved that the band members are so tight and sonically powerful, they may even be underrated. During “Morning Bell,” bassist Colin Greenwood’s smooth low-end tone heightened the song’s dynamics and locked in perfectly with Selway’s creative backbeats. Meanwhile Johnny Greenwood illuminated minds like a impressionist painter as he washed the audience in sumptuous guitar tone with his clever use of delay pedals, cry-baby wah and white-noise distortion. (My chest cavity and the bottom of my pants were shaking from the bass frequency’s super-slow electron push.)
When Yorke strapped on his vintage Gibson SG for “Bodysnatchers” - the rocking first single from “In Rainbows” - the band locked the audience into their patented three-guitar attack; from there they were unstoppable. Tempos rushing, hearts accelerating, minds expanding from Yorke’s heady lyrics, Radiohead’s bliss-inducing rock shows feel like a coup against a music scene establishment that all too often appears to embrace bland mediocrity over cutting-edge creativity.
Audience favorites included “There There” (which closed out the first set beautifully), “Climbing Up The Walls,” “Planet Telex” and the show closer, “Idioteque.”
Radiohead hasn’t entirely mastered the super-sized amphitheater/arena rock experience. Even though their T-shirts were sweatshop-free and partially made from recycled plastic bottles, the $40 price tag felt inflated, as did the cost of the $25 water bottles (also made from recycled goods) that were for sale at the merch booth. Green products and a green-minded band helping save a planet in peril are totally on point, yet Radiohead might consider using a less expensive manufacturer to get costs down for the masses.
And although parts of the light show were as good as any, it’s obvious the five gentlemen in Radiohead haven’t actually watched a concert from a general admission lawn area in a long, long time. They didn’t bring any jumbotrons to flank the stage, nor did they use the enormous video screens the venue already had in place. The overall concert experience for audience members in the first 100 rows was exponentially different from the experience of the thousands of people at the back of the lawn area. Either the band should consider multiple shows in a smaller venue (unlikely) or just add some over-sized monitors to their roadshow to help the general admission lawn folks see and enjoy the show a little more.
The band did use smaller video screens at the back of the stage that projected real-time video of the concert, but they were too tiny for most people in the lawn area to see.
Beyond the typical territorial trappings of arena rock, Radiohead - and their thousands of fans - appeared to have an awful lot of fun while enjoying some of the most sonically creative and emotionally pure music around.
Radiohead set list
15 Step
Bodysnatchers
Lucky
Morning Bell
Nude
Pyramid Song
Weird Fishes/Apeggi
The Gloaming
National Anthem
Faust Arp
Videotape
Optimistic
Where I End and You Begin
Reckoner
Everything in Its Right Place
All I Need
There There
Encore 1
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
House of Cards
Climbing Up The Walls
Planet Telex
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Encore 2
You And Whose Army?
Idioteque
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By Curious
May 19, 2008 2:21 PM | Link to this
Nice writeup. I’ve seen them a few times through the years but foolishly opted out of driving to Houston for another show. Sounds like I missed out.
On a side note, how do you figure the band has 200 songs in their repertoire? 7 albums(8 if you include In Rainbows disc 2) at an average of 12 songs each + maybe 5 b-sides per album is just over a hundred by my maths. Not snarky - honestly curious.
By V. M. Black
May 19, 2008 4:45 PM | Link to this
Thanks. And yep, you missed a good one.
Oh…and for the 200: I based that on my experience playing in and working with bands. The strongest bands often record two-times as many songs as the number that make the records. Then I factored in assorted B-sides, EPs and one-offs. Then I added that number to some bootlegs I have of theirs, in addition to the songs they play at soundcheck, some of which haven’t been recorded.
By Joel
May 19, 2008 5:19 PM | Link to this
Amazing show!! We have pictures and videos up on our blog.
http://ultra8201.blogspot.com/2008/05/last-night-radiohead-at-pavillion.html
By Reckoner
May 20, 2008 1:03 PM | Link to this
Thanks for the great post and the track list. I had been waiting for soo long to see Radiohead and this being the first chance I had since I moved to Canada, I flew in from Ottawa especially for this show. It was the most amazing show, the song selection was so diverse, a definite crowd pleaser. They lived up to the label of being one of the best bends of the time.
Worth every mile!
By Will
May 20, 2008 3:12 PM | Link to this
Seeing the show from WAY back on the lawn, I’m going to have to disagree with you. I guess you were so close you didn’t see that the LED lights were also projecting (albeit distorted) video of the band onstage. I actually told my friend after the show that their setup made it a lot easier to be that far back (I’m a huge RH fan that got to see them in a club in 98 from the front row, so I have seen them both intimately and from a ways away) with the kickass light setup. Especially enjoyed the closeup during You and Whose Army? of Thom’s good eye. The whole point is that they’re trying to lower their carbon footprint while reaching as many fans as possible (thus they haven’t been using any venue’s video setup), and I seriously thought their cheaper and more energy efficient display was cooler than any of the standard video screens other arena bands use. I agree with your assessment on all other counts though.
PS I have 137 Radiohead studio recordings on my iPod, and I have pretty much everything they’ve recorded. If that helps.
By Phil from Austin
May 22, 2008 1:16 PM | Link to this
I went. I saw. I came.
:)
I was absolutely thrilled with this concert. It seems as if every human emotion had floated through the sound waves that night.
Tool is my favorite band and I have seen them live 3 times, all recent. Until I just saw Radiohead live, I would have said that Tool was the best show on the planet.
Not anymore.
People…if at all you have the slightest taste for Radiohead on their studio albums…FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY, please go see them live. The sounds that they extrapolate from their instruments are literally staggering. I literally lost my balance a few times from being hit by the force of the music so hard.
By Nate in Houston
May 23, 2008 9:07 AM | Link to this
Phil from Austin:
You took the words right out my mouth (or keyboard, I guess)! I’m with you on Tool also, they’ve been my favorite band since about 1994. I didn’t think any show would be able to top theirs (I’ve seen them 5 times), but Radiohead came real close.
I was thoroughly impressed with their accuracy performing live. Thom has incredible range with his vocals, and he was dead-on during the show. The level of detail with the effects and instrumentals was amazing, and of course the light show and set design was one of the highlights of the show. I was totally blown away.
I’ve always enjoyed Radiohead, but kind of from a distance. Now that I have seen them live, I’m going back and revisiting all of their albums. I think I’ve really been missing out all of these years.
I enjoyed the show so much that my wife and I are looking to fly to Toronto to catch them again in August. They are absolutley incredible.