Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Concert review: Radiohead

I can safely say that last night's Radiohead show at the Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa was the first concert I have attended where the band did not play its two most famous/popular songs (which I argue are Creep and High and Dry -- counterarguments welcome). And I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The band played with the confidence that their arsenal of music was so good, and so well liked, that as long as they covered a good cross-section of their career, fans would not be disappointed. They were tight as a unit, and threw together a great set of songs, focusing heavily on their latest album, the high-quality In Rainbows (the only song off the album they missed, incidentally my favorite, was Jigsaw Falling Into Place). I'm more of a The Bends and OK Computer Radiohead fan, and their inclusion of The Bends, Just (a pleasant surprise), Lucky (ditto), The Tourist, and others was more than enough to keep me satisfied, while latter-day greats Everything In Its Right Place, Optimistic, and There There were also show-stoppers.

It wasn't until after the show that I began focusing on just how many songs I wanted to hear that they didn't play. In addition to the aforementioned misses, they also didn't play older favorites Stop Whispering, Fake Plastic Trees, Black Star, Paranoid Android, Karma Police, and No Surprises. But the fact that a band can miss playing that many great songs, and still leave someone such as myself completely satisfied, indicates just how amazing their catalog truly is.

(Full set list here.)

UPDATE (5/12/08): Got a concert call during Karma Police from Bill Gates who saw the Radiohead show at the Nissan last night. According to that set list, they also played Jigsaw Falling Into Place, Paranoid Android, Myxamatosis, and Fake Plastic Trees. Not sure who got the better show, but to me it just reinforces how much the band rocks.

Song lyric of the day (natch):
"What are we coming to?
What are we going to do?
Blame it on the black star
Blame it on the falling sky
Blame it on the satellite that beams me home"
- Radiohead, Black Star

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

May 07, 2008 11:57 AM  
Blogger Barzelay said...

Your perception of their most popular songs is skewed by when you started listening. You assume that whatever attracted you to them also grabbed everyone else's attention at the same time.

For me, I was aware of them with Fake Plastic Trees, and Creep, and Just, but no one really knew them then. Karma Police and Paranoid Android, however, were ubiquitous. Everyone listened to them, everyone watched the videos. The videos were on all the MTV video of the year crap, and all of that. So, to me, those are by far the most popular.

In reality, we're probably all wrong, and they had some other song on a stupid soundtrack or something that's their most popular.

May 08, 2008 3:48 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home