Concert Review
For two-plus hours at White River Amphitheatre Wednesday night, life on Earth made sense: The best dance band in the world was the most popular band in the world, and everybody present felt the appropriate sensation of awe.
As each song's architecture was revealed to the sold-out crowd of 20,000 fans, unbelievably momentous things seemed to be positioning and colliding. But Radiohead never formerly came off delusionally self-important.
During the track "Climbing Up the Walls," petite, pasty singer Thom Yorke appeared to corrode his upheld acoustic guitar. He wailed into its sound hole, while somehow the band produced noises from ambient to ominous, from digital dolphin squeaks to a massive wash off of sound.
Across the stage, skinny guitarist/sound manipulator Jonny Greenwood convulsed, hair flopping in his face, judiciously turning knobs on what looked like a kitchen radio or large outback control. That's Radiohead doing "its thing."
"Its thing" Wednesday night was straightforward guitar pop (albeit straightforward guitar pop that felt like floating in space or deep-sea dive) but too taking songs to frenzied, abstract territory.
Yorke's silvery articulation was in fine form, going from seething to soaring on "Jigsaw Falling Into Place." On bare songs built for his voice, he put jaws on the floor. But the glacial "All I Need" and swirling "How To Disappear Completely" would've fallen matt if non for Phil Selway's drums locking a narcoleptic rut, and Greenwood controlling a symphony with his fingertip on something like a theremin.
There was one flubbed song. Yorke and Greenwood tried to play "Faust Arp" as an acoustic guitar dyad and Yorke had to stop a few multiplication because he forgot the lyrics.
The crowd was never mad. Before starting once more, he swore at himself and strummed some Neil Young, then someone from the wings rushed the words (or maybe a dollar for the impromptu busking?) to Yorke's feet and the song was completed beautifully.
The audience, mostly 20 to 40 long time old, polished before the concert below a charcoal sky that rained later.
Very few language were offered to the crowd besides pleasantries, merely Yorke did mention his favorite thing about Seattle was the World Trade Organization rioting back in 1999. He called the WTO malignant.
There were Tibetan flags wrapped on guitar amps, and Radiohead has asked fans to auto pool and use public transportation if possible to attend their concerts. The band is political like Bill Gates: Their gigantic stature demands some opinions about the world.
The opener was the noisy American rock banding Liars, wHO was thanked accordingly by Yorke after Radiohead completed a few encores.
Andrew Matson: 206-464-2153 or amatson@seattletimes.com
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