{"id":970,"date":"2021-10-27T20:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-27T20:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=970"},"modified":"2026-06-27T21:01:28","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T21:01:28","slug":"radiohead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=970","title":{"rendered":"Radiohead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

October 2003, Sound Advice Amphitheatre, <\/strong>West Palm Beach, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t confess to being a Radiohead fan from the start. When \u201cCreep\u201d came out, I enjoyed it like many others did, but I didn\u2019t buy the album, or the one after it. When OK Computer<\/em> was released, I remember watching the video for \u201cParanoid Android\u201d and finding it intriguing, but the song didn\u2019t hit me at the time. It wasn\u2019t until I met my wife to be, who was a huge Radiohead fan from the start, that I really started to listen to Thom Yorke and his bandmates. Kid A<\/em> came out a month after we started dating, and we listened to it at a steady clip. It is my favorite Radiohead album, one of the best albums of the last 25 years as far as I\u2019m concerned.<\/p>\n

I was introduced to all of Radiohead in 2000, somewhat late by most people\u2019s standards, and came away a little pissed at myself. I could have been listening to The Bends<\/em> for the past five years and I wasn\u2019t? What an idiot. As for OK Computer<\/em>, my bad, my total bad. And Pablo Honey<\/em> isn\u2019t as good as the others, but it\u2019s still pretty damn good. We\u2019re never as cool in our musical choices as we pretend to be, and my overlooking of Radiohead (and Oasis too) was too my detriment.<\/p>\n

I mean, The Bends<\/em> rules. It\u2019s OK, music always lets you catch up.<\/p>\n

And so it was, in 2003, Radiohead decided to tour to South Florida on Hail To the Thief<\/em>, the last album the band would make before giving their music away for free (those crazy guys). It harkened back to The Bends<\/em>, so I gravitated to it right away, though it still rang with all the electronic blips and bells that filled the band\u2019s most recent albums. Since this was back in the day when people still went to music stores to buy tickets (I know, weird), one Saturday morning my wife and I lined up for tickets to a show we both really wanted to see.<\/p>\n

Tickets were going quick. We wanted to get three tickets together \u2014 our friend Jon wanted to go as well \u2014 but three in a row meant sitting at the very back. So we chose one, one and one. It meant my wife got a seat near the front, and Jon and I were back a bit, but not too far. Not ideal, you want to enjoy concerts with others, but sometimes you have to be separate to get a good seat.<\/p>\n

We all bundled into one car, entered the amphitheater and went our separate ways. I had a pretty good seat, maybe 30 rows back dead center, and sat amidst the crowd of 15,000 or so for what I assumed would be a good show.<\/p>\n

Yeah. Understatement.<\/p>\n

The band walked out, and to the guitar plugged-in feedback of \u201c2 + 2 = 5,\u201d began the night\u2019s journey. The song, the opening track on Hail to the Thief<\/em>, has a harried pace on the album but live takes on an anxious and furious feel. Yorke settled into the opening verses with a slow build, working his way to the repeated chorus “You are not paying attention” which he yelled in a frantic pace. It reminded me of Robert Smith\u2019s repetition of \u201cAnd Again\u201d from \u201cA Forest,\u201d which I\u2019ve seen him scream several times live. \u201c2 + 2 = 5\u201d is now one of my favorite Radiohead songs, based on this five-minute stretch to open the show.<\/p>\n

The band, working the new material, moved through \u201cSit Down, Stand Up\u201d and \u201cWhere I End and You Begin\u201d before delving deep into OK Computer<\/em> for \u201cLucky\u201d. It was interesting to watch the band prepare as each song ended and started \u2014 a choreographed dance involving pedals, guitars, electronics and placement. The speed of the turnaround was impressive \u2014 there was lots to be done but it never interrupted the flow of the show.<\/p>\n

A pair of songs from The Bends<\/em> followed \u201cJust\u201d and \u201cTalk Show Host\u201d (yes a B-side, from The Bends<\/em>) \u2014 before the wonderful and awesome (yes like mountains) \u201cParanoid Android\u201d.<\/p>\n

The light show was superb, backed by a huge electronic board which illuminated in different shapes, colors and video. During the bridge of Paranoid, when the band slows down and Yorke sings \u201cRain Down\/Rain Down\/Come on rain down on me,\u201d the electronic board slowly dripped red lights from top to bottom in a scattered pattern. The song, which is really three songs in one, took on a distinct attitude with the light show. The ending, a broad explosion of instruments, was halting and beautiful.<\/p>\n

The main set would include \u201cAirbag,\u201d \u201cMorning Bell,\u201d \u201cYou and Whose Army?\u201d and \u201cIdioteque,\u201d which had Yorke dancing about in a fit of utter madness. \u201cThere There,\u201d with its two set of drums, brought a rousing end to the set, giving the crowd a chance to breathe.<\/p>\n

Yorke came on stage alone for the start of encore one, sitting behind the piano noting \u201cThis song is for the people at Comcast\u201d before singing \u201cWe Suck Young Blood\u201d. A camera with a fish-eyed lens was mounted on the piano, and Yorke mugged for the camera while singing \u201cAre you hungry?\/Are you sick?\/Are you begging for a break?\u201d Pure delight.<\/p>\n

And then, and then, \u201cThe National Anthem\u201d. My favorite song on my favorite Radiohead album, it was one of those concert moments that never leaves you. The textured drums and bombardment of sound overwhelmed, it was too good to be true. The band could have ended there, and I\u2019d been happy, but of course the band upped the ante with \u201cStreet Spirit (Fade Out)\u201d and added a second encore of \u201cKarma Police\u201d and \u201cEverything in Its Right Place\u201d to assure the night reached legendary status. Sure, this is something they do at every show, but it was more than special for me.<\/p>\n

Afterward my wife and Jon were silenced, in a bit of awe. Great bands will do that, and Radiohead is among the best of them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 2003, Sound Advice Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, Fla. I can\u2019t confess to being a Radiohead fan from the start. When \u201cCreep\u201d came out, I enjoyed it like many others did, but I didn\u2019t buy the album, or the one after it. When OK Computer was released, I remember watching the video for \u201cParanoid Android\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-radiohead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/970\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}