Radiohead fills the Hollywood Bowl with rock, trippy lights and a spiritual experience
By Jennifer Clay
A&E Assistant
It’s not an easy feat writing concert reviews, particularly when you offer to review a band notorious for its somewhat fanatical concertgoers and did-I-record-every-detail-of-this-perfect-show groupies. When the most uttered phrase before, during and after the show is “spiritual experience,” you know you are in trouble. Can a somewhat comparatively unaffected fan suck it up and attempt to experience a fraction of what these American zealots feel when hearing their British musical saviors? (And when I say “British musical saviors,” I’m not talking Spice Girls.) And the answer is … perhaps.
After a summer of European and stateside festival dates, Radiohead has returned. Touring to support its latest effort “Hail to the Thief,” the band played the first of two sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl Thursday.
The band began its two-hour set with “Thief’s” first single “There, There” and one heck of a light show. Complete with an egg-shaped stage flanked by two television monitors splashing live “Photoshop-ed” images of the band (probably designed for the “enhanced” viewer), the band made its way through mostly new material, omitting only “We Suck Young Blood” and “Wolf at the Door” from the “Thief” record.
Material from 1997’s “OK Computer” including “Airbag,” “Paranoid Android” and “Exit Music” (also featured in the 1996 feature “Romeo and Juliet”) made their respective appearances throughout the set.
The lone offering from 2001’s “Amnesiac” —“Like Spinning Plates” — opened the first encore, and a jammed-up “Karma Police” and “Everything in its Right Place” from the album “Kid A” rounded out the second. The real blast from the past proved to be “Lurgee” from 1993’s “Pablo Honey,” which was performed roughly midway through the evening.
In between vocals (and sometimes during), the eccentric Thom Yorke moved with the grace of an epileptic, unchoreographed monkey, and the fans ate it up. It is precisely this connection with the music that keeps Radiohead a favorite with fans. Even without a single ounce of poise, Yorke keeps moving in an unrealized effort to tangibly make sense of his own songs. Crystal clear as ever, his soaring, sometimes wavering tenor and uneven vibrato remained as haunting live as on record. (Despite Internet reports of technical issues, this reviewer — although approximately 400 rows from the stage — heard mostly balanced numbers and an almost absence of feedback.)
And somehow, a spectacle that could have easily become the Thom Yorke Show seamlessly remained a Radiohead gig. With mindless chit-chat at a minimum and television time for others, the entire band (Ed O’Brien on guitar, Colin Greenwood on bass, Phil Selway on drums, Jonny Greenwood on guitar and keys) seemed in high spirits and top form.
The icing on the cake? The light show. Between tunes, the stage assumed the look of an abandoned warehouse, stripping the band to that image of a group still struggling to bring its music to the masses. The beautiful irony here is that Radiohead was, at the time, in the midst of playing a sold-out show. During numbers, the simple but dazzling lights reminded us that our little band had conquered the world. Aside from supplying a perfect visual translation of the music, the lights told us what we already knew: Radiohead is the little band that could.
October 02, 2003