Gotta love youtube - the whole concert from the first four stops are online.... definitely getting psyched.
RJT
Nice - have fun, Jeff. :)
I'm a big Radiohead fan myself, and have been listening to them quite a bit lately as I've followed Myra's turn away from all that much EDM and just moved to various rock.
I'm not a huge fan of "Pablo Honey" or most of "The Bends", but "OK Computer" and "Hail to the Thief" are two of my favorite albums of all time, and "Amnesiac" holds a special place in my heart just by virtue of "Pyramid Song" appearing on it.
As for the people who don't care for or don't understand Radiohead's popularity - I completely understand. Yorke's voice isn't for everyone, and much like how I just can't seem to find myself enjoying NIN, I imagine a lot of people have the exact same experience with Radiohead. Someone's already said it, but yeah - different strokes to move the world.
Also, the crowds at their shows can be one of the most irritating groups of people to ever be surrounded by (at least the only time I saw them it was). Reminded me a lot of the Goth kids from South Park and their conforming to non-conformity. :stongue:
Lebezniatnikov
quote:
Originally posted by RJT
Nice - have fun, Jeff. :)
I'm a big Radiohead fan myself, and have been listening to them quite a bit lately as I've followed Myra's turn away from all that much EDM and just moved to various rock.
I'm not a huge fan of "Pablo Honey" or most of "The Bends", but "OK Computer" and "Hail to the Thief" are two of my favorite albums of all time, and "Amnesiac" holds a special place in my heart just by virtue of "Pyramid Song" appearing on it.
As for the people who don't care for or don't understand Radiohead's popularity - I completely understand. Yorke's voice isn't for everyone, and much like how I just can't seem to find myself enjoying NIN, I imagine a lot of people have the exact same experience with Radiohead. Someone's already said it, but yeah - different strokes to move the world.
Also, the crowds at their shows can be one of the most irritating groups of people to ever be surrounded by (at least the only time I saw them it was). Reminded me a lot of the Goth kids from South Park and their conforming to non-conformity. :stongue:
I've always liked them, but I wouldn't have called myself a real fan until after listening to "In Rainbows" for the first time. I don't care a whole lot for "Pablo Honey" or "The Bends" either, but "OK Computer" and the new album are both fantastic. Lucky for me, they're playing a lot of both and "Hail to the Thief" at recent shows. I'm definitely looking forward to the show... but the crowd does sound like it could annoy (even just going by the crowd reactions in videos).
RJT
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
I've always liked them, but I wouldn't have called myself a real fan until after listening to "In Rainbows" for the first time. I don't care a whole lot for "Pablo Honey" or "The Bends" either, but "OK Computer" and the new album are both fantastic. Lucky for me, they're playing a lot of both and "Hail to the Thief" at recent shows. I'm definitely looking forward to the show... but the crowd does sound like it could annoy (even just going by the crowd reactions in videos).
Yeah - I made the mistake of going with a kid I grew up with (was one of my best friends when we were young) who wound up being one of the "conforming to non-conformity" set once we went to college, and so I got lectures about what it is to "get" Radiohead the whole time - the number of people we met who seemed to be of like mind frightened me.
But in general I'd still say it was one of the best shows I've ever seen - outside at one of my favorite concert venues (Alpine Valley).
And the first tune on "Hail to the Thief" is an absolute monster live. :)
MJM74
quote:
Originally posted by AMMORA
my own fault for just wanting a pic that reminded me of happy sunny beach days in miami...:toocool:
Great times we had that week.
:toocool:
AMMORA
been in love with that song for a long while....agree on the proper fall/winter music thing.
try living in cleveland during the worst/greyest/coldest/snowiest of times and listening to that...
Lebezniatnikov
Just got back.
WOW. Radiohead in the pouring rain... insanity.
Setlist:
1. All I Need
2. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
3. Lucky
4. Nude
5. Pyramid Song
6. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
7. Myxomatosis
8. Idioteque
9. Faust Arp
10. Videotape
11. Paranoid Android
12. Just
13. Reckoner
14. Everything In Its Right Place
15. Bangers and Mash
16. Bodysnatchers
17. Like Spinning Plates
Encore:
18. Optimistic
19. Karma Police
20. Go Slowly
21. Planet Telex
22. Fake Plastic Trees
Encore 2:
23. National Anthem
24. House of Cards
LionsLair
quote:
Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
Just got back.
WOW. Radiohead in the pouring rain... insanity.
Setlist:
1. All I Need
2. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
3. Lucky
4. Nude
5. Pyramid Song
6. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
7. Myxomatosis
8. Idioteque
9. Faust Arp
10. Videotape
11. Paranoid Android
12. Just
13. Reckoner
14. Everything In Its Right Place
15. Bangers and Mash
16. Bodysnatchers
17. Like Spinning Plates
Encore:
18. Optimistic
19. Karma Police
20. Go Slowly
21. Planet Telex
22. Fake Plastic Trees
Encore 2:
23. National Anthem
24. House of Cards
holy @ setlist. They dug deep and brought the business.
Yeah I never jumped on the Radiohead bandwagon until In Rainbows either. I mean, I always liked them and appreciated them...they were just never one of those bands for me. Dunno why.
Lebezniatnikov
I didn't have the energy to post last night, but a review has to be written. I'm sitting here trying to think whether to describe last night as the worst night of my entire life or one of the best. I could make a legitimate argument for both. Nearly 24 hours has gone by and I'm still struggling to put into words the whole range of emotions last night brought.
I went to this show pretty excited. I hadn't been a huge Radiohead fan before hearing "In Rainbows" but over the past two months the band has really grown on me, so when a friend of mine found himself with an extra ticket, I pounced on the opportunity to go with him to the show. I don't know if it was worth it or not.
The weather forecast changed continuously in DC over the weekend, and has left me completely jaded about the ability of meteorologists to get a single freaking thing right. On Friday the forecast said Sunday night would be clear. On Saturday the forecast said partly cloudy. On Sunday morning the forecast said light showers. But I can tell you - there wasn't a shower in sight. It was a freaking deluge. I've been caught in some rainstorms before, but this was unlike anything I've ever seen. It simply didn't stop. A co-worker this morning told me they put out a gallon bucket and it filled in a half hour. Imagine that for multiple hours in a row and that was last night.
I live about a half hour drive from Nissan Pavilion when there isn't any traffic. It's just one road - interstate 66 - straight out into the country for about 30 miles, and then a three mile jog on a four-lane county road to the Pavilion. We left at 6:00 for a 7:30 show, thinking that even if it took us three times longer than it should, we'd still get to see the opener. Wow, were we wrong.
Traffic was bad as soon as we cleared the Beltway, and by the time we came within five miles of our exit, traffic was stopped altogether. Little did I know that we had entered the queue to get into the parking lot eight miles away. We sat in traffic for three hours before realizing that the car was about to run out of gas. So we had to pull out of the line to find a gas station. Having gone five miles out of our way, we took a look at the map and saw that there was a back route to the Pavilion. Thinking ourselves so clever, we set out on the journey only to see a police car up ahead put on its lights and pull to the side of the road. I slowed down to see where it was going, and it slowly pulled into the middle of the road perpendicular so that it blocked both lanes of the road. The cop then calmly got out of the car, put up his rain hood, and lit a flare. The road was closed - as we turned around we asked if there was another route and he said "this road's washed out, you need to go back to the interstate." .
So we head back to the interstate, fully aware that Radiohead had already taken the stage at this point (due to a friend who had left at 4:00's constant text messages) - we got back into the line probably about where we would have been had we just stayed in it originally. I didn't feel bad about cutting for a single second. We then sat for another whole hour as we traversed the three miles to the pavilion parking lot. Well, it wouldn't be fair to call it a parking lot at that point. It was more like a lake. There were potholes everywhere, and all of them were filled with six inches of water. The rest of the lot was covered in 1-2 inches. And it was muddy. Getting to the pavilion from the car was absolute hell - it was like traversing a war zone. The ground was pockmarked and there was muddy water everywhere. Visibility was very low as the gusty wind drove the rain down in torrents.
We finally got to the main gate and could hear "Just" playing from afar.
The staff from Live Nation looked unsure of what to do, and as the stream of people kept coming I heard one of them ask if there were many more people yet to arrive. I just looked at him and laughed. There was still a line of cars clear back to the interstate. Radiohead had been on stage for an hour and a half at this point, and the staff tried to tell us that the concert was "over" and that we should turn around and go home. Uh huh, we weren't having it. Someone said "even if this is the last ing song, I'm going to be inside to hear it" and they let us in. Even though we had pit tickets we literally ran to the lawn (we were already soaked anyway) as "Reckoner" began. The landscape was horrific. The sound was great, and the stage looked awesome under the pavilion, but the lawn, which is normally a nice grassy slope, had become a giant mudslide. Water was pouring down it in streams, and there was no grass left. We were standing on the rim of a bowl of mud.
We decided then and there that "damn it, we came this far, and we're going to enjoy this concert" and started making our way down to the pit. But of course the event staff wouldn't let us go straight down the stairs... no... we had to be routed out of the stadium (and back into the rain) and around to the backside before getting let in by a staff member who looked at our tickets suspiciously before yielding. We bullied our way into the center as "Everything in its Right Place" built up, and by the time the song erupted, we were right there, dead center stage thirty feet from Thom Yorke.
The rest of the concert was absolutely unbelievable, and nearly erased all the pain of the last four hours. Radiohead was incredible - every song was considerably better than I ever expected it could be live. And then, as the first encore came to a close, Thom Yorke announced how terrible he felt that there were reportedly fans getting turned away by the weather and event staff, and giving what seemed to be a huge middle finger to the LiveNation staff who demand that the sound get turned off at 11 (it was 11:15 at this point), he dedicated the next song to all the fans that got turned away and couldn't make it. What song was it? "Fake Plastic Trees." A song they hadn't even sound-checked yet on this tour and one that they rarely perform live anymore. And it was awesome:
They finished with a really frenetic, awesome rendition of "National Anthem." Unfortunately I haven't found a live version of that one online, because the light show was just sick.
Unfortunately, as soon as Radiohead got off stage, we were back in hell. Forced out of the pit and back into the rain, we soon saw that during the last hour a retaining wall had given way and a river was now crossing the walkway that led from the stage area to the main mezzanine. The only thing to do was wade across and give in to getting soaked. Some crazy people actually laid down in it - it was so cold but people were losing it.
The mass of humanity poured with the muddy water toward the entrance, and someone remarked that it felt like we were in a scene from "Children of Men." I joked to my friend that it felt more like being in Burma, but someone beside me said "dude, too soon." Woops.
Getting through the parking lot was a muddy experience, and by the time we got back to my car, we abandoned all sense of modesty and stripped to our underwear. Even with the heater on full blast it took a good hour to warm up. I couldn't have imagined watching that concert from the lawn for the whole two and a half hours.
We sat in the parking lot for about an hour, and finally got back to DC about 2 AM. All in all it was a topsy-turvy night. We were pissed we only got to see half the concert, but even that half-concert was easily the best live performance I've ever seen. I think once we got there the rain may have even added to the whole thing. The ambiance was absolutely incredible.
The only thing that doesn't make me absolutely pissed about the whole experience is waking up this morning and reading literally dozens of reviews, blog posts, and comments on radiohead's myspace page and the Nissan Pavilian's review site about how many people were turned away by event staff before they could even get in. Some people drove all the way from North Carolina and New Jersey/Philadelphia only to get turned away after sitting in traffic for 6+ hours. So sad. Some of the posts are horrible only because I can totally identify, and I didn't have so far to go. Someone said that with the train and/or Chinatown bus, it would have been faster and far less of a hassle to go from DC to NYC to see them in Madison Square Garden sometime. It would be funny if it weren't so true.
All in all, it was a horribly managed event, though the band did try to make the most of it. The weather was ungodly, but the music was heavenly. And it certainly makes for an interesting story.
I got three hours of sleep in before heading to work this morning, and once I got there all of my co-workers were talking about people they knew that got turned away. The place couldn't have been more than half full. Such a damn shame. It's like the venue didn't know what to do with a capacity crowd. Kanye West played there the night before, and one of my co-workers that went there said that they ended up tail-gating afterwards for two hours because they had no hope of getting out of the one parking lot entrance. Seriously, if you build a pavilion that seats 30,000 people, don't you think you'd have more than one parking lot entrance? Ugh.
Maybe the worst part of the whole night is that my jeans soaked through so badly that my cell phone, which was in my pocket, got completely waterlogged and isn't working anymore.
Ugh.
I'll just leave with a few pictures and a video of a song we had to miss.
