Setlist
Burn the Witch
(Extended Intro)
Daydreaming
Decks Dark
Desert Island Disk
Ful Stop
Airbag
Talk Show Host
Climbing Up the Walls
Morning Mr. Magpie
Nude
Identikit
The Numbers
Lotus Flower
The National Anthem
Reckoner
Idioteque
Everything in Its Right Place
Encore 1
Give Up the Ghost
Bloom
Present Tense
2 + 2 = 5
There There
Encore 2
Bodysnatchers
Karma Police
(Thom ending solo on guitar with crowd singing)
Highlights: 2 + 2 =
5, Bodysnatchers, Climbing up the Walls, The National Anthem, Idioteque,
Everything in its Right Place, Karma Police
Notable Omissions: Creep (although Thom Yorke hates it so un-surprisingly),
the lack of anything from the Bends (not that it mattered)
In short the Radiohead concert was even more amazing then I
hoped it would be. I can’t actually say it was the best concert ever, as I’m
doing my farewell tour of music this year and seeing as many of my favourite
bands as possible before they split up, retire or become a shadow of their
former selves so there is still a way to go. However if it doesn’t make the top
3 I would be very surprised.
A number of events conspired to make this concert so good.
Firstly, Radiohead don’t care what people think. They just get up and play
their songs, there is no banter with the audience, they don’t waste time
crapping on between tracks, there is little audience participation factor to
their music so all the songs interleave together as one creating a musical
journey through their catalogue. Matthew Bellamy of Muse take note – the
swearing and crapola between tracks you do detracts from the show – you are not
Freddie Mercury so don’t try to be. Radiohead are who they are and don’t care
if you want to hear Creep, they’re sick of it and hate it so don’t play
it. It’s their music, they know it best,
and know how to best present it and for this reason you’re never really sure
what you’re going to get, more so then any other band I might like, where I
would reasonably be able to predict 85% of the songs played live. With
Radiohead don’t even try, they’re even doing distinct set lists for each night
on this tour, that’s how dedicated they are to creating a show unique to each
audience.
It’s important to note I didn’t come to Paris for 1 night to
see Radiohead. I had merely planned a stopover to breakup my trip to Germany so
I didn’t spend all day on a train. I was even thinking of getting tickets to
the French Open. However a couple of months back Radiohead announced their
European tour dates and blow and behold the dates matched. I stayed up 1
Saturday night trying unsuccessfully to get tickets, stuffing up the dates and
time zone, but also dividing my loyalties whilst trying to obtain Kent tickets
at the same time, the Nordic Radiohead. I kept my eye on ticket resale prices
and they hovered around $800 for a ticket but the day before there was 1
considerably less than that so I took a punt, was put in touch with some guy,
told to meet at some place and had to figure out how to get into the Paris
Zenith, fortuitously happening to be on the same metro line which ran past my
hotel. The world had aligned.
As people descended on the venue and the usual desperate fans
with signs looking for tickets roamed around looking depressed, I initially had
trouble finding my contact, thinking I might have have been scammed, but we found
each other in the end. Radiohead are very aware tickets for their concerts sell
out quickly as people who aren’t fans buy up big and put them on resale sites
for huge margins. They hate this and for this tour each person’s name was printed on the ticket and the name had to match ID to get into the venue. I
thought I was to be escorted into the venue but the guy told me, your name is
Martin. You need to get through the ID check somehow. Pretend you forget your
ID – it’s the only way.
As I joined the long queue for the security checks, which is
like going through airport security as a result of the Paris terror attacks
last year, I started formulating Martin’s back story. Basically Martin was
going to be a stupid foreigner without any ID who didn’t speak French. When the
entry people quizzed me about my ID I told them I didn’t understand them, could
you please speak English. They found me someone and I went on to tell them I
left my passport at the hotel, which is true, I never carry it with me, and
they spoke French to each other basically saying, “What do we do with him?”
whilst I looked as confused and innocent as possible, considering the
possibility of tears if required. The guard who spoke English told me to go to
ticket box#1 and whilst en-route I somehow managed to make a wrong turn that
got me into a queue with a guard who simply did not bother to check my ID. I
felt like OB1 Konebe in Star Wars when he said, “You don’t need to see our
papers.”
The Zenith theatre seats about 6000 people and is quite an
intimate and small venue, you don’t feel
The show used different colour/video schemes for each song.
They used strobe lighting in some places. The mix was perfect, the band had 2 drummers,
3 guitarists at times, and a bunch of people on keys/piano/electronics, the
band changing instruments between songs. Radiohead’s music is defined by 2
distinct eras, the 90’s more post grunge, post progressive rock blend of
electric/acoustic guitars with futuristic sounds which morphed into their post
2000 career of more electronic, ambient, moody, mellowed music that was edgy in
very different ways and evolved with each album. The bass maybe slightly louder
in the mix, and even though there is less guitar, it is still present.
The interesting thing is that their songs live sound largely
the same as on the albums, they’re just adding all these little subtle bits to
them in places, mixing it perfectly and increasing the intensity at various
points to intoxicate you into the musical journey. Radiohead is not a band you
sing along to, nor does their music have a high audience participation factor,
yet the French crowd found a way of getting involved, and as the show continued
the audience got more and more involved in the music, clapping and cheering
between songs, stamping their feet. It was a trance like experience, 1 girl even fainted. By the end
of the 1st set the crowd was delirious as they finished with
Everything in its right place, they’re usual concert finisher. As is usual for
European crowds they break off into these little sets of hand claps which get
faster and faster, then stop, then begin again, getting more intense. This is
something I used to hear a lot of on my old Queen bootlegs. I’ve not seen it in
Australia. The band went off-stage and there was unbelievable noise with
everyone on their feet, clapping and cheering for them to come back for the 1st
of 2 encores. It was the encores which stole the show.
The build-up of each song was significant, the band teasing
the audience with slightly longer intro’s to build anticipation, picking a few
slower numbers Give Up the Ghost and Bloom, before moving into the slightly
faster Present Tense of their latest album. Everything peaked in 2 + 2 = 5 as
they kept tinkering on the verge of the loud guitar section before they launched
into it and deafened the audience for several minutes, teasing us with heavy distorted
guitar. This continued into There There, off the same album, where they really
rocked out. The band left the stage but the crowd wouldn’t let them go and they
returned for another encore, with a large piano being wheeled on stage.
The final encore rocked even more with Bodysnatchers
featuring all out guitar, to incite the crowd even further, at this point the
noise was overwhelming loud and the band finished with Karma police, the 1
song of the night the audience could genuinely sing along to and we were
encouraged to do so, settling us down. Thom Yorke finishing the show with just himself
and an acoustic guitar with an audience singalong as they were saying their
farewells. There were some “merci beaucoup” between tracks, the band ensuring
that all pre-recorded audio/visual pieces which preceded some tracks were in
French such was their attention to detail. There were so many 1% they did to
improve the quality of the show. They didn’t resort to exuberant lighting tricks,
stage theatrics, they let the music do the talking, and had just the right
energy appropriate for each song, and most importantly for me, the bass was
always at the right level – that is the 1 thing I notice above all in a mix. If
you had have told me prior to the show there was nothing from the Bends I
probably would’ve been disappointed but when you see them play the best of
their post 2000 period music you see how they evolved and how they were trying
to challenge and improve themselves rather than getting stuck into a familiar
sound.
Many people critized Radiohead after the releases of Kid A /
Amenesic when they went more electronic. People leaving them, saying if they
wanted electronic they’d just choose something else. However the band were finding
a way forwards so they wouldn’t get stuck in a stagnate sound like the Foo
Fighters and so many others. The concert featured 24 songs in 2 hours, was
worth every cent, and everyone left feeling well pleased. The only real
downside for me was as I was leaving, walking and talking with the French girl
I’d just met, I realized I’d left my man bag behind in the rush to leave. This
never happens – not now! Not wanting to cause an international incident,
visions of bomb squad coming in to check the contents of my bag I rushed back
to my seat to retrieve it. Sadly I couldn’t catch the girl I’d just met as I
tried to push my way through the crowd to get back to her, she was waiting for
me, but it turns out the French don’t like it when you push through them, I got
so many dirty looks despite my "Pardon" and "Excusez-moi". In the end it was the 1
thing I like so much about French women – their dark brown hair - that was the
thing that lost me – everyone looked the same from behind and in a crowd of
thousands and I lost her before exchanging details. With limited
resources and ways to get her details nothing turned up so this puts her onto
the POD list of missed opportunities …
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