Show Review

While continually reinventing their sound, amidst pushing the possibilities of what can be created from scratch, Radiohead continues to set the standard in the studio. Although often considered the world’s greatest live band, the five piece from Oxford, England meshes thundering guitars, disco-teque beats, acoustic shimmers, new wave flourishes, and orchestrated indulgences that turns every song into an event, while keeping the crowd attentive to every live nuance.

At Radiohead’s second show of their US Summer Tour, at Parc Jean Drapeau, a natural ampitheater laid snuggly upon an island on the St. Lawrence River with the skyscrapers of Montreal gleaming in the near distance, Radiohead took the stage early, but possessed mid-show stride from the get-go. With a sprawling light show that featured vertical pillars that were a cross between Times Square and an overproduced MTV video, amongst six multimedia screens on the stage showcasing each of the five band members, the band is no stranger to the term - plugging in. These screens that also let us in on the infamous mid-summer flies, which were outspokenly brought to the attention of frontman Thom Yorke as he exclaimed– "AHHH! Flies! I’ve got flies in my bloody teeth" which speared an immediate connection between the highbrow leader and his zealous fans. In between holding his mic stage front and center like a hip-hop artist, strumming acoustic melodies on acoustic guitar or producing jazzy tones on his keyboard, Yorke revealed his uncanny leadership traits. However, for the rather uninviting Yorke, this was quite welcome in a city where its often mentioned, "what happens in Montreal, stays in Montreal."

Opening with "2+2=5" set the course of the evening as a number of the songs hang tight upon the delicately fragile shrills of Yorke, who had the crowd politely listening and appreciating, as the song later divulged itself into its rambunctious rock half. Followed by the foreboding "Sit Down, Stand Up" with Yorke on keys-and a syncopated jam, the show began to follow the same path as their most recent album, Hail to the Thief. Followed by a mix of new – "Where I End And You Begin," and semi-new- "Kid A" Radiohead moved back and forth between anthems which later found Yorke dancing in place during "Backdrifts," almost losing it at a relatively early 8:30 P.M.

The band had a chance to revisit the pop rock of "Just" from The Bends and the crowd pleasing "Paranoid Android." But it was the new songs that really proved their weight in the live setting particularly when Radiohead showed their penchant for groove within "A Punch Up At A Wedding," with Colin Greenwood’s deep bass lines and Yorke’s half doomsday half swinging keyboard lines. As a new song, "Punch Up" displays the live energy formula of the tumultuous buildup of "Idioteque," which later followed, and had the crowd fist pumping and hopping to the song in unison to Yorke’s dominant outbursts. "There There" which featured thunderous tribal beats and enlisted Johnny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien to play dual stand-up syncopated drum lines, further displaying the band’s yearnings for challenging themselves.

A climactic "Karma Police" had the crowd singing the refrain of "this is what you get" in the encore, followed by the delicate electric piano lines of "Everything In Its Right Place," that ended the show on a relatively placid note. Not your typical rock and roll fist throwing encore, but than again this is Radiohead, the band that would end a performance on a whisper, just to push their own creative limits.

Setlist -

2+2=5, Sit Down Stand Up, Where I End And You Begin, Kid A, Backdrifts, Lucky, Paranoid Android, A Punch Up At a Wedding, I Might Be Wrong, Just, Scatterbrain, Go To Sleep, Pyramid Song, Idioteque, The Gloaming, There There.

First Encore - You And Whose Army, National Anthem, Big Ideas / Wolf At The Door, Street Spirit

Second Encore - Karma Police, Everything In Its Right Place.