Rock Out With Your Blog Out

Absolutely unreal.

I’m going to go ahead and throw out a flawed analogy here. Seeing Radiohead for the first time reminded me of the first time I watched my friend’s HDTV. Up to that point, I’d seen plenty of standard definition televisions that I thought were awesome (you know, ones that were massive or had cool speakers). But it took about three seconds to realize that everything I’d seen up to that point fell short of the new standard.

I’ve been to great concerts before. I’ve been to terrific ones this year that I thought wouldn’t be topped (see: Spoon, Pearl Jam, My Morning Jacket). But those shows seem lacking now after witnessing the world’s best band at their creative peak.

Radiohead utilized the slickest lighting and video screens I’ve ever seen. Hands down. Between the stalactite orbs behind the stage and the gritty security cam-looking screens, I experienced many moments of sensory overload. Of course, the intricate visuals would’ve failed gloriously if the music wasn’t crafted with similar precision.

My friend pointed this out the other day, and he’s 100 percent right. We’ve probably seen 30-40 shows at Deer Creek (Verizon Wireless Music Center) and no concert has been as audibly pleasing as Radiohead. Although I love the venue, the acoustics are far from perfect. Minor imperfections are commonplace, whether the bass starts to hiss or the vocal overwhelm the mix. But every song sounded flawless during Radiohead. I always figured it was the facility, but perhaps other bands lack the complexity of calibration to overcome most shortcomings.

So everything looked and sounded gorgeous and the setlist was full of left turns. “Pyramid Song”, “Exit Music (For A Film)” and “How To Disappear Completely” served as haunting testaments to the band’s power. Other songs, like “15 Step” and “Just”, were four-minute blasts of forget-all-your-problems fun. Not only was there not a single clunker all night, but there was nary a performance that lacked at least one “Oh shit” moment (Oh shit…Thom’s playing the drums on “Bangers ‘n’ Mash”. Oh shit…What a creepy introduction to “Climbing Up the Walls”).

It was all astounding. The best concert I’ve ever attended. Not quite life-changing, but certainly perspective-altering.  

15 Step
Bodysnatchers
There There
All I Need
Pyramid Song
Nude
Weird Fishes / Arpeggi
The Gloaming
Climbing Up The Walls
Faust Arp
Videotape
Morning Bell
Idioteque
Reckoner
Everything In Its Right Place
Just
How To Disappear Completely
—
You and Whose Army
Bangers and Mash
Exit Music (For a Film)
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Karma Police
— 
House of Cards
The National Anthem
Street Spirit

Here are several superb videos from the show. If you click the embedded player, you can watch in HQ from the YouTube site. Bottomless props to skabadelic, who I’d like to meet some day so that I can give him/her a high five.

“Climbing Up The Walls”

“Just”

“How To Disappear Completely”

“Street Spirit (Fade Out)”