Stewart Wilson

Besides an annoying American woman organising the queue’s outside the great white pillars of Wolverhampton Civic Hall, the pre-concert tension was in full flow. The usual tshirt sellers were in the foyer, to which I bought my third Radiohead tshirt, a badge and a keyring. We managed to get within about 6 or 7 metres from the front of the stage. The support was Willy Mason, an American country singer/guitarist and came on early at about half 7. He had a good style to his music and left us all in high spirits for the next and final act. The Civic hall is a relatively cosy venue with an upper seating tier. The stage was a reasonable size with almost every inch of it covered with a mass array of weird noise producing machines.

The lights dimmed to a complete blackout and the sound of the crowd escalated. The usual warped radio speech segments were played over on loop until the first signs of life on the stage were starting to show. Then cue the bassline to The National Anthem. I was curious as to the opening song. Any normal band plays their most explosive hit to kick off a live show but remember this is no normal band. Radiohead follow no rules. This passed off without a hitch besides a furiously energetic crowd. 2+2=5 came next. This was a bit of a singalong and really got the crowd going despite the posters on the wall saying “Radiohead kindly request no moshing or crowd surfing”.

What came next was a new song for the new album (TBA) called “Bangers N Mash” to which Thom announced as being about “whatever gets you up”. It was an unusual one, more to what we expect from something around the Hail To The Thief era. It also has a rare moment when Thom switches from tambourine-ing to drumming.

Next came a band favourite, “Lucky” followed by yet another new song, “15 step”. It starts as a very trippy, Idioteque style song that builds with a nice harmony from Jonny on the guitar. Yet another HTTT song came along next, debuted on their tour in Wolves: “Sail To The Moon”. You could almost hear a pin drop towards the end as the crowd fell silent hanging on to every note Thom played on the piano. This is Radiohead’s magic, to be able to captivate an audience in such away.

This was followed by another new song, a very catchy bluesy song titled “House Of Cards”. It was relatively unknown to the crowd but very much appreciated. Now was the chance to bring a few older ones out of the closet with “I Might Be Wrong”. This proved very popular and clearly got Thom very hyped up. This showed at the start of the next song, Bones. Another oldie, which got off to a false start really as Thom was doing what appeared to be Superman impressions, accidentally nutted the mic and had to start the song over again. It took the crowd into hysterics coupled with an explosive song. And to calm things a little, another new song, “Nude” which was dedicated to Nigel Godrich, whom helped Thom produce his “solo” album, “Eraser” to which a song off this album “Cymbal Rush” is being played by the band on recent legs of the tour. This was followed by the orchestral newbie “Arpeggi”.

During “My Iron Lung” things got a bit hectic in the crowd and somebody started crowd surfing, much to Thom’s displeasure. During a slight lull in the song he shouted to the offender: “Just chill the fuck out!”. He did.

“Where I End And You Begin” came next and in songs like this you realise just how much of a worker Jonny is on stage. He just never stops.

“Climbing Up The Walls” was perhaps the best I had ever seen this song performed. It rocked out in its hauntingly ghoulish way to which I sang to every word. Next came an unusual treat, “How To Disappear Completely” followed by the crowd pleaser, “Idioteque”. And to finish with, “There There”.

As usual, there followed the pointless ego building encore crowd shouting bit which always happens.

Thom seemed to be in top form this night. He was chirpier than usual and more talkative. Phil made a solid performance as usual under difficult circumstances, having recently losing his Mum and thus cancelling the second Amsterdam leg of their tour. “This is a song from a few years ago. Actually most are from a few years ago, because we buggered off. But we did write some new songs which you ‘ave ‘eard", yes you guessed it!! “Let Down”! What happened next was quite possibly the climax of the whole gig, the moment the whole night has been gearing up for, at last a huge singalong,”Karma Police”.

Not really a singalong, more a screamalong, so much so that you couldn’t actually hear Thom singing. Another new song, “Bodysnatchers” a very bouncey riff coupled with melancholy singing really went down well. The final song of the encore was “Everything In Its Right Place” to which the band arranged so as to leave the song on a loop whilst walking off the stage individually. But that was by no means the end of it all. Nobody was going anywhere. The band techies brought out a Xylophone/Glockenspiel or whatever it is. Whatever it was, it meant no surprises for a second and final encore. While a mellow end to the gig, it was still amazing.

Another nice feature were the screens on the wall behind the band showing different camera angles of the band playing on stage, nice for the shorter people who couldn’t see anything! It was also interesting to see some older stuff emerge like Bones, probably as old as you are going to get played as Pablo Honey seems to be finally put to rest, unfortunately.

A completely exhausting, hot sweaty experience didn’t bother me in the slightest as seeing the band in such a great condition, poised on the release of their new album made me forget all the cramped sticky atmosphere and I will definitely go and see them again, maybe next year when their album IS released.

Rating:

8/10

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