Radiohead

Malahide Castle, Dublin – 7 June 2008

It’s the morning before Radiohead’s 2nd of two appearances in Dublin, as part of a lengthy European tour. Rays of the early summer’s sun pierce the curtains of my apartment, promising perfect weather in a country where outdoor gigs are usually a pretty stupid idea. I switch on the television, and amidst the cookery programmes and cartoons am confronted with an ad for for a new double cd ‘Best Of’ compilation. Clips of ‘Just’, ‘Street Spirit’, ‘Karma Police’, and of course that timeless angstichrist anthem ‘Creep’ are aired to sell it, which is of course hardly surprising. Radiohead’s first 3 albums are bona-fide alternative rock classics, all swaggering hard rock crunch, intricate yet aggressive guitar work and heartfelt wailing from Britain’s signature gloom-meister, Thom Yorke. Only fools try to claim that Ok Computer didn’t mark their creative peak, or that Radiohead somehow became more interesting when they ditched the riffs for electronica (beginning with the admittedly enjoyable Kid A). Lies!

Radiohead in full-on, split-screen amazing technicolour blandness

With this in mind, it was with an air of nervousness that I stepped into the grassy expanse of Malahide Castle’s grounds, shadowed by a massive stage that itself was flanked by 2 huge screens. Since most of what I listen to these days would be lucky to draw a crowd of 300 in a dingy hovel in a red light district somewhere, the prospect of up to 40,000 punters pouring into 1 spot on the outskirts of Dublin was slightly unnerving, truth be told. Still, arena-rock can be a life-affirming experience when handled correctly; Nine Inch Nails and The Foo Fighters tore Marley Park a new arsehole between them last Autumn. Radiohead, I theorised, would need to pull some serious rock-shapes and keep the electronic noodling to a minimum if they were going to hold their own in such an unintimate setting. In other words, they had to either give the crowd exactly what they wanted by trotting out the hits of old, or beef up their newer material with some balls, which plenty of bands tend to do in such situations (See Smashing Pumpkins’s metalled-up version of ‘Ava Adore’ on their recent tour for a good example).

Radiohead open with 2 cuts from their newest offering, In Rainbows; the ponderous, trip-hop inflected ‘15 Steps’ and the muchy stronger, almost rocking ‘Bodysnatcher’. In Rainbows is quite an odd album because, despite the band’s obvious attempt to reclaim their testicles from the land of organs and keyboards, they haven’t yet cured themselves of what seems to be a pathological fear of the distortion pedal. This phenomenon had its roots on Ok Computer, but Kid A cemented this phobia. ‘Airbag’ is up next, tantalisingly nreminding us of just how powerful Radiohead were when they rocked. The next hour or so, however, proves an excercise in frustrating endurance, as Radiohead insist on trotting out song after song from their less stadium-friendly repetoire. This would have been fine – possibly even inspiring – in an enclosed, candle-lit aura, but in front of a boozed-up mob who really just want to punch the air with delight, cuts from the dreary likes of Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief just don’t cut it. These are joined by a liberal dose of In Rainbows material on offer, which whilst pleasing to the smattering of hardcore fans who occupy the front row, leave much of the audience cold and bewildered, despite the red bask of the dusk sun. At times it felt as though everyone around me were wound up like a tight coil, bursting with potential energy and just waiting for ‘Just’, ‘Creep’ or ‘The Bends’ to kick them into action, but alas it wasn’t to be. Thom Yorke wailed and howled with aplomb, and the band are tight and note perfect, yet remain unaware that they’re not playing a club but something more akin to a festival. Hell, i’d be the first to champion a band that refuses to capitulate to fan pressure to deliver a greatest hits set, believe me, but for fuck’s sake it’s an outdoor concert, you can tell the humans have come to rock, and surely no one just handed over 70Euro to be lulled to sleep, right?

What's that? You can't see shit? Well tough, because neither could I.

Annoyingly, the band do 2 encores (why they couldn’t have just extended the main set instead of such a pointless, patronising routine which smacks of a lame attempt to drum up a bit of excitement among a mostly comatose audience is beyond me), and begin it with ‘Exit Music’. ‘Exit Music’! So now that you’ve just been bored half to death by the last hour, here comes the encore to finish you off, as ‘Exit Music’ is one of Radiohead’s most depressing tunes. Maybe i’m missing something here, but I always thought the purpose of the encore was to give the audience a short, sharp shock of excitement by whipping them into a joyous frenzy via the most uplifting, stupendpous song they’d ever written, and thus implant a lasting memory of greatness and energy to make the experience memorable for eternity. Not so Radiohead, who merely limp ahead for a further 8 tracks (including Ok Computer’s most boring track in ‘Climbing Up the Walls’). It’s frankly bizarre that a band of Radiohead’s stature, with such a wealth of incredible material at their disposal, would choose this of all occasions to appease the anoraks (granted, there are more than a few in Radiohead’s case). They made the classic mistake of misjudging their audience, the setlist more likely to alienate than captivate. Thom Yorke, who’s never been the most sociable of rock stars, also failed to engage with the crowd in any meaningful way, and in front of an audience this size it’s nothing short of crucial to create a rapport.

So there you have it – the sound was great, the stage looked great, the weather was glorious, but Radiohead left all but the fanatics grasping for even a fleeting moment of rock’s omnipotent power, and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any left in Radiohead’s sizeable carbon footprint.