Radiohead @ Victoria Park, London 24/06/08

I’ve just been to see one of my all time top-ten favourite artists – and possibly the most important band of the last 20 years – and I feel a little odd. I should be elated, ecstatic, enthralled; instead I’m overcome by a mere contentment, with the tiniest hint of disappointment.

With last year’s number one album, In Rainbows, Radiohead broke a hundred rules of the industry, and musically went where most people were unsure they’d ever be able to go again. In Rainbows brought a warmth and a grandeur back to Radiohead’s sound that had been missing for the past seven years, while still retaining all of the stunningly clever experimentation that they have become known for. OK Computer might still be their masterpiece but last year they delivered, in my opinion, their second best album. Yes, it was better than The Bends.

Radiohead launch into the two tracks that open their recent album: the jittery ‘15 Step’ and ‘Bodysnatchers’. In the fading summer glow, this behemoth of a band appeared on the giant stage and seemed altogether very small. Thom Yorke almost seems like a schoolchild so dwarfed is he by the dangling stage effects and the empire of fans he surveys. No wonder he admits to being terrified. He still finds the will to lose himself completely in the music, that trademark haunting voice emanating from him as he dances with all the lunacy of someone due a visit from the Exorcist. Johnny Greenwood meanwhile also has something childlike about him, but it’s in they playful spirit with which he adjusts his synths and keyboards rather than his size.

The music, of course, is superb and performed with all the skill and passion you’d expect from an act of this calibre. It comes as no surprise that the band steer heavily through their most recent material, playing nine of out of In Rainbows’ ten songs including the ‘Jigsaw Falling into Place’ and the utterly beautiful ‘Nude’. (Unbelievably my favourite on the whole album ‘House of Cards’ is the one they miss out).

They add a few cuts from each of their previous albums except for the absent debut Pablo Honey (but that’s hardly a surprise). This creates a lean towards their post-millennium electronic era and herein lies the problem. Victoria Park is a location so huge that only the front 20% of the audience can see the band members without a struggle; and outside on a summer’s evening there’s an almost festival-like vibe to the show. Such a massive venue requires massive songs and lacks the intimacy needed for some of their less accessible work. The part-time fans who crowd the park might give a warm reception to ‘How To Disappear Completely’ and ‘The Gloaming’ but it’s nothing compared to the to response from ‘Just’.

I don’t blame the band for wanting to avoid a ‘greatest hits’ setlist at a time when they have such high quality new material and while former record label EMI hawks a messy compilation. And it’s a fine show, wonderful even. Yet what’s missing tonight is the sense of shared experience among the audience that might have been ignited if Radiohead had given us just a few more reminders of why we first fell in love with them.

That setlist in full:

Main Set:

‘15 Step’
‘Bodysnatchers’
‘All I Need’
‘The National Anthem’
‘Pyramid Song’
‘Nude’
‘Weird Fishes / Arpeggi’
‘The Gloaming’
‘Dollars & Cents’
‘Faust Arp’
‘There There’
‘Just’
‘Climbing Up The Walls’
‘Reckoner’
‘Everything In Its Right Place’
‘How To Disappear Completely’
‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’

Encore 1:

‘Videotape’
‘Airbag’
‘Bangers & Mash’
‘Planet Telex’
‘The Tourist’

Encore Two:
‘Cymbal Rush’
‘You And Whose Army’
‘Idioteque’

Limbo, Panto – Wild Beasts

It’s difficult to believe what you’re hearing on your first encounter with the voice of Hayden Thorpe, lead singer of Kendal four-piece Wild Beasts. Surely no genuine artistic outfit would opt for such an overblown falsetto croon? The man appears to be attempting a Kate Bush impression! Yet as the sweeping strains of debut album Limbo, Panto take hold, it becomes strikingly apparent that Wild Beasts are, in fact, utterly serious. Overstated it may be but the passion and inventiveness on this record are undeniable.

While the absolutely delightful early single ‘Assembly’ boasted an addictive silliness, the song is boldly absent on Wild Beasts’ full-length debut where they seem to take a more sincere approach. From the swirling crescendo of opener ‘Vigil for a Fuddy Duddy’ onwards, this is a musical exploration that borrows lightly from all sides but gives back more than you could hope for. There are injections of soft funk and haunting wails; sometimes it sounds like a classical concert, sometimes like a circus; but rarely (if ever) does this sound like your typical indie rock band. The playful side is still there, most obviously in ‘Brave Bulging Buoyant Clairvoyants’ which takes you to giddy stratospheres with all the spring its name suggests. However, there’s so much more than caricature and camp to be found here.

Thorpe’s voice is the central uniting thread in all of this, projecting the kind of intensity usually purveyed by Final Fantasy’s Owen Pallet. It might be almost laughable to the uninitiated and nears tiresome if overplayed, but it holds a strange beauty in the right dose. The falsetto makes it even more powerful when he comes down an octave into his guttural growl of a normal register. It also finds a great counterpoint in the voice of bassist Tom Fleming (most notably on new single ‘The Devil’s Crayon’), whose thick baritone lies somewhere between Anthony of the Johnsons and Editors’ Tom Smith. Most of all there’s something so intent about Thorpe that it’s difficult to doubt what he’s saying. He does, after all, swear on his own cock and balls and that’s not an oath a man takes lightly. When he declares “I’m not a soft touch and I won’t be seen as such,” you don’t for a second doubt him.

The rest of the words are a rollicking journey through rhyme and alliteration and every phrase rolls off of Thorpe’s tongue and bounces around your head. Few would be daring enough to use the lines “When I’m utter putty I’m wetblanketfully lay lumpen/I feel red hot heart’s heat beneath left teat a thumpin’.” This might sound painfully over the top on paper but Wild Beasts somehow bring credibility to their ridiculousness. True there’s a sense of traditional English eccentricity and foppery here and Limbo, Panto positively revels in its own pomposity; however, the initial shock-value of the vocals gives way to the revelation that this is a serious, stunning and musically accomplished album. Absurd and unfashionable it may be, yet it’s utterly charming if you want it to be.

In defence of the CD

A package arrived for me in the post yesterday. Although it wasn’t unexpected, I still got a tingle of excitement as I carefully tore open the cardboard envelope. I knew almost certainly what lay within and yet some it recreated that Christmaslike feeling of surprise and sweet anticipation.

Inside was not anything extraordinary: a CD. To most people an everyday object and hardly worth getting excited over, never mind writing a blog about. CD sales continue to decline year on year and, in an era of instant access, downloads and iPods, many view those shiny plastic discs as relics, soon to be consigned to the annals of history.

I, however, still hold a special affection for the humble CD. Of course, much of its appeal can be found tenfold in a vinyl LP: giving you something that is tangible to hold and beautiful to look at, creating a sense of musical heritage and importance. I am not trying to laud the CD as some great as a great technological and cultural icon (though the argument could probably be made). My point is more general – that music any a physical format provides something that no mp3 ever could.

iPods and the like are an incredible invention, a gift from the gods to music lovers, and the internet give us more freedom than ever before to seek out and listen to music. Illegal downloads (for all their negative points) allow us to avoid making those regrettable choices, picking albums that seemed like a good idea at the time but soon turn out to be bland, sleep-inducing or downright awful. The internet has saved me from wasting my hard-earned cash on over-hyped debuts and derivative follow-ups. At the same time it has introduced me to the work of artists I may never have spent money on without the reassurance of first hearing their records online.

Despite the wonders of the web, buying CDs remains an integral aspect of my musical experience. Aside from ensuring well deserved payment reaches the artists who spend their lives creating this wonderful stuff, there is nothing quite like undergoing the ritual that comes with a playing a newly purchased record: opening the case or sleeve, placing the disc delicately in the stereo and discovering the opening strains of a new album for the very first time without knowing where it will take you. Whether you race home from the record shop clutching your little square bag or receive it in the post, that first play always holds a mysterious combination of anticipation and trepidation , precisely because you don’t know how it will sound.

Physicality should be an essential part of the experience of owning and listening to an album. There’s the artwork to gaze over and the lyric sheet to be studied in the hope that they might yield clues to some hidden meaning of the music contained within. It’s a pleasure to read the credits and discover where the songwriting talent lies, which band member can play the theremin and the maracas, and who that entrancing backing singer is.

So don’t give on CDs just yet. Don’t forget how you treasured your favourite album, the joy of taking it out of the rack to play, and the potential that small disc held because it was a representation of the music that meant so much to you.