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| Radiohead,
Royal Festival Hall, London |
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| Live,
Dan Wolff,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F5
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Radiohead finally play British soil after an absence of 18 months to partake in Scott Walker's Meltdown and it feels like an event before you even enter The Royal Festival Hall. Ticket touts are looking pleased with themselves as they sell tickets for £200 EACH after tonight sold out in thirty minutes when they went on sale months ago. Once seated, expectation grows to fever point when the lights go down and five skinny men amble on stage.
They open with Optimistic, the first of ten new songs played tonight and dispite the unfamiliarity the crowd seem hypnotized. Following Bones and Karma Police, the second new one is Morning Bell, an organ-led upbeat song descibed as 'a song about amnesia.' For most bands, a song as amazing as Street Spirit would be saved until the end but here it is, utterly magnificent, five songs in with b-side Talk Show Host aired directly after.
Old and new are mixed in together so we get the familar No Surprises, My Iron Lung, Exit Music, Airbag and Just. New ones include the drum machine (a bit like The Cult's Witch) sounding National Anthem, You And Who's Army with an eerie piano and double bass, In Limbo which Thom plays tamberine and guitarist Ed O'Brien switches to organ and the jazz influenced Dollars And Cents. Special mention must go to Lucky from OK Computer which was truely breathtaking, filling the huge room with it's sound. The main set finished where we started, with a new song called Everything In Its Right Place during which Thom repeatedly kicks his keyboards when they fail.
They returned with two of the strongest new songs ,the piano-led Egyptian Song which sees a giant glitterball light up the hall and Knives Out which could be the most catchy new one tonight. This part of the encore closes with the always amazing Fake Plastic Trees and the epic Paranoid Android leaving the crowd making more noise than ever before. They return for the last time with a single new song How To Disappear Completely And Never Be Found which is almost ambient in the build up reminiscent of Spiritualized. That's it. Times up for all the would-be-Radiohead bands who tried to steal their crown when they diappeared. Now their back with an album, Kid A, that will blow people away the same as OK Computer did in '97. Resistance is futile.
1/7/00
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