Radiohead Cause Rainbows

Molson Amphitheatre

Toronto, ON

on Aug 15 2008

Noah Love (CHARTattack)

08/18/2008 3:45pm

Friday marked the seventh time I've seen Radiohead and, for a number of reasons, it may have been the best show I've seen them perform. But this show also had a few interesting subplots, both for myself and the other 16,000 or so in attendance.

Here are three short stories about the Radiohead show:

The Blackout
The last time Radiohead were scheduled to play the Molson Amphitheatre was Aug. 16, 2003, almost five years to the day of this show. A massive power failure forever known as "Blackout 2003! Woo!" on Aug. 14 postponed that performance until October, at which point it was played in a cordoned-off section of the Skydome.

I wasn't supposed to be at the Toronto show, but instead the Montreal concert at Parc Jean Drapeau the next night. But there were two problems: 1. I was still in Toronto. 2. Neither I nor my girlfriend at the time had rented a car before the power had gone out. Scrambling in a crippled city like nomads the next morning, we managed to get the last available car at a downtown agency and made it to Montreal just as Stephen Malkmus hit the stage to open the show. I don't think I've ever driven faster, much to the dismay of the two passengers I took to Quebec. But I didn't hear them complain when we got to the park on time.

I bring up this story for a significant reason. On Friday it looked as though the weather was conspiring to keep Radiohead off the amphitheatre stage again. In the mid-afternoon, the downtown west end was hit with a severe thunderstorm that featured a funnel cloud (that didn't touch the ground) and a summer hailstorm. As Grizzly Bear began their set, rain pelted the lakeshore and lightning bolts creased the water all around the venue.

But there was a happy ending. The sun came out in the west, and when the rain didn't stop, two or three rainbows — one a stellar, perfect arc — appeared directly over the venue. It was eerily appropriate given the title of Radiohead's latest magnum opus.

The Band's Band
I saw Radiohead at Lollapalooza a couple of weeks ago in Chicago. Knowing that I would see them in Toronto shortly thereafter, I spent more of the show taking in the scene and the crowd than the band. (Plus, there wasn't much point in taking in the band if you didn't spend four hours waiting in front of the stage to see them. Sightlines were terrible and getting a head-on view of the stage meant going to a place in the field where the sound was brutal.)

About 10 feet in front of me for the entire show, encores included, was something you don't typically see at a festival show — well-known artists checking out the headliner. Bloc Party's Kele Okereke, Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear and Yeasayer stood in a clump nowhere near the stage, but buried in the sold-out crowd, and diligently watched the whole set and happily talked with any fans who approached them.

When I brought this up in an interview earlier Friday with Droste and bandmate Chris Bear, they confirmed that they've watched every Radiohead set during the tour except the show in Montreal, where it poured rain the entire time. Most Radiohead shows I've seen have made for great celeb-spotting, and Friday was no different Feist and Owen Pallett were sitting about 10 rows in front of me. Of course, they're friends with Grizzly Bear, but when you're friends with a band opening for Radiohead, I'm sure you make a bit of an extra effort to get the hook-up for their show.

The Song
There's no point in writing what you've read in 20 other reviews from Toronto this weekend. In fact, I'll rehash them all in one sentence: Radiohead are technically perfect, their light show is second to only the orgy of technology offered by Nine Inch Nails show, there's no point in complaining about any minor faults because they're awesome. So instead I'll tell you why this is my seventh Radiohead show, besides the fact that they're my favourite band on Earth.

Almost every performance I've seen since Hail To The Thief was released has felt more or less the same, but that's not to say they've literally been the same. Radiohead are one of the few big touring bands who change their set list at every tour stop, and on any night you can see something transcendent or merely pedestrian. When they played two shows at the Hummingbird Centre in 2006, the former was so-so, the latter was stunning.

Just before those 2006 shows, the Coachella concert DVD came out, and it featured Radiohead playing "Planet Telex." It was one of the few times that I've seen a song's live performance exceed its original version so much that it almost became a different song. At every Radiohead show I've seen since then, I've been dying to hear them play it in concert and until Friday night, I'd left every show more than mildly disappointed that they didn't, even if I liked the performance.

In any event, after a clap-along second encore take on single "House Of Cards," Jonny Greenwood began pounding those familiar opening notes through excessive feedback — and then Thom Yorke shut the whole thing down saying the rest of the band had no idea what he was doing. My blood ran cold. Was this as close as I'd get? Thankfully, no. Greenwood completed the proper, thoroughly awesome live "Planet Telex" intro (you can YouTube the Coachella performance) and I finally got to see the Moby Dick of my Radiohead performances. Between that, "Like Spinning Plates," "Talk Show Host" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," this was a special set list that pushed the show from pretty good to fucking great.

"Planet Telex" was a logical conclusion, but they pushed on into "Everything In Its Right Place," with Yorke mumbling lines from "Creep" over the ambience before the track began. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this was a case of seven times lucky. It's hard to say if those Hummingbird shows could be beaten for sound or sightlines, but the performance itself made this the best Radiohead show I've seen.

Here's the set list:
"15 Step"
"Reckoner"
"Optimistic"
"There There"
"Morning Bell"
"All I Need"
"Pyramid Song"
"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
"The Gloaming"
"A Wolf At The Door"
"Faust Arp"
"No Surprises"
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place"
"Idioteque"
"Climbing Up The Walls"
"Nude"
"Bodysnatchers"
"Like Spinning Plates"
"Videotape"
"Airbag"
"Talk Show Host"
"Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
"House Of Cards"
"Planet Telex"
"Everything In Its Right Place"