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| RADIOHEAD LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN NYC, NY Friday, October 10, 2003 review by Tom Birner This should probably be written on some sort of scroll. One of the things Radiohead does is transform the reality of confusion into something that sounds damn near holy. They’re also able to disguise hope as fear and fear as hope, so it’s hard to tell which is which. Just like the city they astonished on Friday night. The most critically acclaimed band in their prime on the last show of the American tour on Friday night at the most renowned arena in the maddest and most spectacular city in the world. And the show of the season was… the show of the season. Like a dignified windy day of autumn in Central Park or the private viewing of an adult film, Radiohead are simply incapable of disappointment, though they’ve totally mastered describing it. (Support band) Low opened with aptly titled heroin music puzzlingly performed by ex-substitute teachers. Lots of people made jokes about death. And lights went off like a cork popped off a bottle of potion that only exists in fairy tales as the crowd let go a roar of highbrow approval while the best live band in the mainstream world took to the stage. Apparently someone forget to tell singer Thom Yorke that this was probably something to be nervous about. He was looser than Mary Carey, fighting a grin throughout the opener, the electronic, foreboding, “The Gloaming,” gyrating and bouncing around the stage with the utmost hipness on the unsettling cry of inexpressibility, “Myxomatosis,” and wearing the smile of a happy musician or an amused prophet of doom on, “Where I End And You Begin.” Yorke had the crowd in his pocket, releasing art room teens from social angst and unwinding corporate slaves from their carefully knit status. Twenty thousand people turned to one adoring fan, yelping throughout the morose acoustic “Exit Music,” and jumping (though it felt unforgettably close to flying) on Yorke’s cue to spasmodically end a fantastic cut of “Idioteque.” Yorke played flawless rhythm guitar throughout the performance, most notably on “There, There” (which featured guitarists Ed O’Brian and Johnny Greenwood on percussion) and “Go To Sleep.” Vocally, he didn’t miss a note all night, transfixing the audience with his ghostly wail on “Street Spirit,” and igniting us all with a powerful rendition of the dissident anthem, “You And Whose Army?” If Yorke is the presenter of this musical experiment then surely, Johnny Greenwood is the mad scientist. Greenwood puts new meaning to the term ‘virtuoso.’ Whether he’s ripping lead on forceful rockers “Just” and “Airbag,” fiddling with wires and dials on the analogue computer on the mesmerizing “National Anthem,” and the closer (the twenty-fourth song and last of two encores), “Everything In Its Right Place,” or tearing out a bold, disjointed solo to end “Go To Sleep,” Greenwood is one of the most stimulating and exciting live musicians in the world. It officially became a ‘special’ night when the band began the rarely played “Creep,” their first and only single to get substantial radio play. It’s always a special night with these guys. Never has music been so artistic and yet so rhythmic; never has desolation been so hopeful and only Thom Yorke could make isolation collective and somehow promising. Setlist: The Gloaming There, There 2 + 2 = 5 Where I End And You Begin Exit Music Talk Show Host Myxomatosis Paranoid Android In Limbo Sail To The moon Creep Scatterbrains Go To Sleep Just Idioteque You And Whose Army? Sit Down. Stand Up. Encore 1: Lucky National Anthem Punch up at a Wedding Street Spirit Encore 2: Airbag No Surprises Everything in its right place |