Nothing to fear, nothing to doubt

Ten years ago, when I was still in college along with my good friends Paul and Jake, we decided to drive from Redding, CA to Salem, OR to try to get seats to a sold-out Radiohead show during the tour in support of their album, OK Computer. To try to ensure that we were able to get tickets, we arrived at the Salem Armory quite early in the afternoon, so early that no one else had yet arrived for the evening show. We could hear the band rehearsing inside the venue, and of course we wished that somehow we could be a fly on the wall inside, listening unnoticed to one of the world's biggest bands rehearse. I don't remember how it happened, but one of us must have pulled on the door out of joking desperation, fully expecting it to be locked. We were surprised and shocked to find the door was in fact unlocked. Like giggling school-girls, the three of us immediately walked in without a moment's hesitation.

What we found was Thom Yorke playing a song by himself on acoustic guitar and several roadies playing Frisbee in front of the stage. An odd sight to say the least. An errant toss landed at our feet and a short man with spiky blond hair retrieved the Frisbee from us (it turns out this was not a roadie but the drummer for the opening act, Spiritualized). The expressions on our faces must have made us look obviously out of place, because after a few minutes a woman security guard in her mid-40s promptly ejected us from our pre-concert performance fantasy.

Now, ten years on, I went to see Radiohead again this past week with my wife Olivia (she likes Radiohead quite a bit). I didn't really know what to expect for the show since I really haven't been too big a fan of the band's most recent records, apart from their latest, In Rainbows. The show however, was nothing short of spectacular. The band was locked in and having a good time. Thom Yorke seemed to be comfortable in his skin, which if you are familiar with some of the lyrics he writes, may come as a bit of a surprise (I know it was to me). I felt that the newer, more ambient and electronic songs translated surprisingly well live, with many of the arrangements expanded to include an organic element which I deemed missing from the recorded versions.

Oddly enough, the band screwed up badly enough at both shows that they needed to stop a song and completely start it over; "The Bends" at the show in Salem and "Faust Arp" (they actually had to restart the song twice) in Seattle. The video gives a good feeling of the general mood of the band. In between the screw-ups Johnny Greenwood and Thom Yorke do an impromptu cover of Neil Young's "Tell Me Why" and drummer Phil Selway leaves a tip.