Radiohead - Live at the Tower Theater Philadelphia 6/2/06
A Review by zach
Date - 2006-06-05 12:25:04
When you go to a live show there are basically three possible outcomes: 1a)You know every song and have a blast. 2b)You know few of the songs and are bored out of your mind, or 3c)You know few of the songs and still have a blast.
i guess you could know all of the songs and not have fun, but that means either the band had a bad night, or you went to the concert of someone you don't like....in which case, you probably shouldn't have been there....idiot.
moving on
i've recently come to believe that 3c is the most satisfying of the three possible outcomes. when you aren't too familar with a band's cataloge and they can still entertain the shit out of you, you know you're at a good show. i also think that the size of the venue has ALOT to do with making 3c possible. it seems far easier to energize a small crowd packed into a smoky theater than 23,000 doped up hippies sitting on a lawn. (pearl jam, ahem)
understandably these tickets were very hard to come by. the show sold out in seconds and within hours of the sellout tickets were showing up on EBAY for upwards of A THOUSAND DOLLARS. the guys next to us in the back row of the upper balcony, for example, payed a little under two hundred a pop. so seeing Radiohead in a very small theater for $40 probably also contributed to the level of enjoyment.
lest you get the wrong impression, i know The Bends and OK Comupter like the back of my hand. Kid A, on the other hand, is a little alien to me, and at this show they played roughly half of that album.
alllllllllllllll that said.
this easily ranks as the best show i've ever seen, in a dead tie with the fourth row of The Roots at the Kimmel Center last summer. it was about a million degrees and a thin haze hung over the crowd. all the 2bers lost their patience pretty early on and started sitting down. the rest of us, however, rocked out and got real, real sweaty. they played almost everything i wanted to hear, as well as some new, very promising tracks. the only negative things i have to say are that thom yorke was a little on the quiet side. meaning he didn't talk but twice, and only then to mention song names. even still he was very entertaining to watch, as he wholeheartedly let the music consume him. the other thing: the performance as a whole felt very, very scripted. which i suppose it has to be with all the electronic cues that are programmed to play along with the band. still, one of the reasons for seeing a band live is to get the improvisational moments that come with performing. you don't want to be able to close your eyes and feel like you're listening to an album. the flip side of that coin, however, is witnessing the skill it takes to play electronic songs live. 'Everything in its right place' and 'Kid A' (the two songs i know) along with the rest of the songs from Kid A and Amnesiac, were some of the most energetic and impressive performances of the night. playing the organ and singing at the same time on 'everything'is not something i would have imagined possible. thom proved me wrong.
so what's the moral of the story? go see radiohead in a tiny ass theater if you can? not really. probably more like, radiohead really is as good a band as everyone says they are. which is rare.
i guess you could know all of the songs and not have fun, but that means either the band had a bad night, or you went to the concert of someone you don't like....in which case, you probably shouldn't have been there....idiot.
moving on
i've recently come to believe that 3c is the most satisfying of the three possible outcomes. when you aren't too familar with a band's cataloge and they can still entertain the shit out of you, you know you're at a good show. i also think that the size of the venue has ALOT to do with making 3c possible. it seems far easier to energize a small crowd packed into a smoky theater than 23,000 doped up hippies sitting on a lawn. (pearl jam, ahem)
understandably these tickets were very hard to come by. the show sold out in seconds and within hours of the sellout tickets were showing up on EBAY for upwards of A THOUSAND DOLLARS. the guys next to us in the back row of the upper balcony, for example, payed a little under two hundred a pop. so seeing Radiohead in a very small theater for $40 probably also contributed to the level of enjoyment.
lest you get the wrong impression, i know The Bends and OK Comupter like the back of my hand. Kid A, on the other hand, is a little alien to me, and at this show they played roughly half of that album.
alllllllllllllll that said.
this easily ranks as the best show i've ever seen, in a dead tie with the fourth row of The Roots at the Kimmel Center last summer. it was about a million degrees and a thin haze hung over the crowd. all the 2bers lost their patience pretty early on and started sitting down. the rest of us, however, rocked out and got real, real sweaty. they played almost everything i wanted to hear, as well as some new, very promising tracks. the only negative things i have to say are that thom yorke was a little on the quiet side. meaning he didn't talk but twice, and only then to mention song names. even still he was very entertaining to watch, as he wholeheartedly let the music consume him. the other thing: the performance as a whole felt very, very scripted. which i suppose it has to be with all the electronic cues that are programmed to play along with the band. still, one of the reasons for seeing a band live is to get the improvisational moments that come with performing. you don't want to be able to close your eyes and feel like you're listening to an album. the flip side of that coin, however, is witnessing the skill it takes to play electronic songs live. 'Everything in its right place' and 'Kid A' (the two songs i know) along with the rest of the songs from Kid A and Amnesiac, were some of the most energetic and impressive performances of the night. playing the organ and singing at the same time on 'everything'is not something i would have imagined possible. thom proved me wrong.
so what's the moral of the story? go see radiohead in a tiny ass theater if you can? not really. probably more like, radiohead really is as good a band as everyone says they are. which is rare.