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Rating: And so, almost unintentionally, quite feebly, I crown the dream (long since dormant) of seeing Radiohead live, so loved in late youth, as much as left to their fate in recent years. In any case, the best rock band of the moment. You will surely read better and more detailed reviews than mine, which is one of those I jot down impulsively with much feeling, the kind that I like so much, but that so many others find awful. If you don't feel like wasting time, then proceed: among those who will tell you it was an unforgettable experience and those who will argue that it was an incredible letdown because Radiohead had the unfortunate idea of centering this latest tour on tracks from the last two albums (perhaps lousy), neglecting the hits that cemented their fame (those ungrateful bastards, disrespectful to their fans, for not playing “Paranoid Android”! etc.), I step forward with a rambling monologue, at times incoherent, often neglected, always and still prolix, deliberately animated by an animalistic incompetence that will mean nothing to most. So forgive me for daring to occupy the “public space.”
Sorry.
Punctual as a Swiss clock, Radiohead appear on stage at 9:30 PM, after the lights had turned off for a moment, only to come back on. Our guys calmly step onto the stage. Thom Yorke has a beard, and the few hairs are tied in a vile ponytail, wearing a lousy shirt, looking as bad as Tibet from Current 93 (and I chuckle inside). The stage is a sight to behold; it's clear we are looking at professionals, probably the best around: a huge stage, billions of instruments spread across its surface, five micro-screens above that during the concert will display close-ups of the five musicians playing, another five suspended screens that will slowly and continuously change position, against a backdrop of lights forming a mosaic of continuously evolving geometric figures. All very spot-on, you see, defying the mundane rock with mega-screens...and might Radiohead be victims of themselves? The consistent architects of their own dissolution?
An electronic track starts, then the instruments join one by one, starting from the phenomenal drumming by the drummer who, throughout the concert, will metronomically reproduce the syncopations of a nervous and somewhat funky electronics, it's probably due to the prominent bass. Perfect sounds, the voice is there, it's real, a semblance of emotion runs along my spine. The piece, which I don't know and is probably the first track from "The King of Limbs" (which I listened to once in a half-sleep, once on a plane), I finally like. Yorke sings and plays the guitar, and fundamentally constitutes the human soul, played of Radiohead. The others refine, some on percussion (even three on drums, at one point), others playing different instruments. Thus: a classy concert, albeit a bit cold, but it is undeniable that:
1) We are dealing with professionals;
2) We are dealing with people who have a huge success, but do not forgo their quest.
I have the impression, however, that Radiohead tonight resemble a bit too much the Liars, those of “Drum's not Dead”, their disciples in the end: strong percussive bases, sparse sounds, Yorke's shrill voice. In the rhythmic contexts, however, I don't understand why Yorke insists on singing in his manner, why not use a vocoder and say to hell with it? Or rather: why don't Radiohead do instrumental music? (Probably because they would sound too much like Aphex Twin, nota bene). Not that Yorke disappoints, mind you, it's just that it gets cloying after a while, with his chants that fitted better in the rock of “Ok Computer”, and indeed he gains points in the slow tracks, at times doing even better than on record, sometimes aided by another group member's backing vocals, letting through that insane, aching, obscuring soul, present in the middle records (there must be a reason why they became the youth angst manifesto, or not?), but which I had frankly forgotten.
The songs from the latest album, from “In Rainbows” and from “Hail to the Thief” alternate, all very homogeneous, perhaps a cold exercise, but certainly managed professionally, and the clean sounds allow you to perceive subtleties you wouldn't expect live. A minor track like “The Gloaming” is paradoxically the peak of this first hour that, however, in the long run, bores me a little. Indeed, beat after beat, between electronic beats and Yorke who either grabs the guitar or moves like a smiling idiot (awkwardly dancing, a bit like Tibet – and I continue laughing inside), I have the same feelings that Radiohead give me on record more or less from “Amnesiac” onwards: I appreciate them, yes, with reason, but they don't move me.
It seems there wasn't a moment, during the concert, when I didn't reflect on Radiohead and their meaning in music history, in an attempt to find new definitions and quantify the importance of this band in music history (undeniable, this importance, in the end we owe all the zeros to them). It seems that Yorke is having fun, and with this awareness, I seem to reach an important first conclusion: Radiohead are very different, not only from those of “The Bends”, but also from those of “Ok Computer” and, let me tell you, even from those of “Kid A”. And then, I justify them to myself: they are great, they have changed, they are a band in continuous evolution, why should they hold a concert of hits that now represent a past that no longer belongs to them?
But when it seems I've found the reading key of Radiohead standing at a few hundred meters away, “Karma Police” unexpectedly starts (weren't they supposed to avoid the classics?). Obviously, I'm happy because I finally find a meaning for myself, a meaning for me who is watching Radiohead, a band I loved between the late nineties and early 2000s. I'm happy because I plant my deserved flag: just now that I was beginning to accept the fact of not being able to witness any of the band's classics, I can finally say to the son (whom I don't have yet) that I've seen “Karma Police” live. The audience comes alive, also because until now the onlookers couldn't agitate, because this is not a rock concert, and you couldn't sing, because there's no music to sing to: a surreal scene, a huge, immobile crowd, as if we were twenty in a pub watching Anthony & the Jonsons”, all still, listening, attentive, applauding timidly when necessary, incidentally: the Radiohead audience is not rowdy, it looks like a quiet sea, an amorphous mass of normal people, common people, perhaps united by the detail in clothing or the thick frame of glasses, and substantially devoid of emotions (and here I open a parenthesis: the Radiohead audience is very young, few are over thirty-five, very few over forty, as if Radiohead were the universal representatives of the young's malaise, but then, when one grows, crossing thirty let's say, it's as if they lost interest, disaffecting from the band, while Radiohead continue to renew their vast audience with new generations, in a turnover that will surely lead them to retirement).
With “Karma Police”, as mentioned, the first lighters (or cell phones?) light up. People start singing, the clumsy audience choirs on the chorus are enough to make the situation hilarious. You can sense, with Yorke behind the piano, the taste of the event, yet I almost have the impression that “Karma Police” (and I only realize it now) is finally a little song. Is it that Beatles touch that disturbs me so much that the piece reeks of puerility? Yorke's high notes are still goosebump-inducing, the rearranged acoustic guitar ending and the endless audience choirs are ultimately very suggestive. It could be the start of a great concert, after all, but then immediately the most recent pieces start again which evidently cannot withstand the emotional climax brought by “Karma Police”, thus interrupting the flow, the communication between audience and band (actually beneficial, given that the guy behind me, who doesn't sing even that poorly, but is a bastard that my sight can't stand when I turn around, who makes me vomit, whom I hate and despise, but mostly hate, sang in my ear the whole time, until a moment ago). More electronics again, though, then “Idioteque” kicks in, and in fact, I get emotional. Then goodbye, end of the first part, the band leaves.
The band returns, plays the first of “Ok Computer” but something broke in me (in the meantime, I had lost my good position for I unwisely decided to reach my girlfriend who had sat down in the grass for a moment, outside the crowd, not finding her by the way, but finding that “Airbag” now fits like a pig at a wedding, and to say I never disliked it as a song): but why do Radiohead still do rock? Aren't they ashamed? Does Garm still sing black metal? A long synthesizer introduction opens what I consider one of my favorite songs, “How to Disappear Completely”, which live renders very well: a moment of almost Pink Floydian suggestion, but it seems now I've lost proper focus, I continue to wander in search of my woman, and so during the song I exit the crowd again to look for her, not finding her, so much so that while Radiohead play my favorite Radiohead song, I find myself in the Red Cross tent to see if I catch of the dropouts, who by the way wasn't answering her phone. I try somehow to re-engage with the concert, but from that moment on, having lost the advantageous position to witness the event, the event itself takes a back seat and I don't give a damn anymore, I want to be home to sleep, knowing that the next day I have to be at work. I wander aimlessly among the stands, with Radiohead in the background, one eye on the stage, one eye lost in the crowd....Yorke announces an “old song” and then an unnecessary song from “The Bends” starts, which I don't even feel like trying to remember the title of, anyway you know which one it is, and it's useless to tell you it doesn't do anything for me (yet in “The Bends” there are good pieces), that indeed it clashes too much with the concert's mood. “Why?” I asked myself as I walked and smoked, “why?”.
In short, between encores, and encores, the more recent tracks return which, as on the record, do not excite me, leave me insensitive, until Yorke gets brought a mega gadget which should then be a mammoth vocoder or something like that, says "goodbye" in a robotic and echoing voice, and after a pseudo ambient introduction, what will remain the most beautiful moment of the evening kicks in: “Everything in its Right Place”, but rearranged on less minimal and more techno tones, a masterpiece that gives me incredible emotions (perhaps because it reminds me of Anathema?) and at this point, I wonder if maybe Radiohead have made only one essential, truly essential album in music history, and that album is "Kid A".
(For the record: my woman was fine, she just sat down to rest, couldn't send me texts because she had run out of credit on her phone, but had free minutes for calls, and so we found each other in front of the toilets, loving and continuing to love each other as before).
At the end of the concert, I find I have no more energy: I'm tired, after two hours and a quarter of a concert standing (or what kind of gentlemen were we when we saw Marione "The Black" Di Donato at the Albatross in Genoa? In the theater? In the dark? Beers hid in bags, and armchairs and the toilet within reach?), with the prospect of an hour-long walk in the crowd to exit that damn Parco delle Cascine, reach the car, then rot in Florence's traffic and drive home.
And I drive towards the bed listening to Gira (ah, the latest from Swans), and while I drive I'm relaxed, I still can't say if I liked the concert or not, but the car moves into the night, and I think about how much I've aged, me who until a few years ago used to drive that crappy road alone every Friday night to see the most useless bands at Viper, or worse still, on Saturday to the Post-Industrial Congresses at Siddartha...I think about how I struggled one night, drunk, with the rain pouring down divinely, and I listened to Gira, and Gira, by pure coincidence, is still there devastating me on the return, at times soothing, at times unbearable, just as only he knows how to...
Okay, let's draw two or three conclusions out of the blue:
1) I still haven't figured out if I liked Radiohead. Just as I had started, with effort, to appreciate the consistency of the greatest rock band of our times in wanting to play 2012 at all costs, in spite of the fans and their past and the big hits, the big hits came to spoil the party. The fact is that Radiohead seem like two different bands, those before “Ok Computer” (included) and those from “Amnesiac” (included) onwards. These two souls don't seem to have been well-blended tonight, so much so that at this point, I would have gladly given up the “Ok Computer” pieces (two) and “The Bends” (one). I have, however, understood that between “Ok Computer” and “Amnesiac” there was an unrepeatable event in Radiohead's history and in music history in general, and that moment is “Kid A”. Just for this, Radiohead should be thanked for a lifetime.
2) I understand nothing also because it was a disorienting experience for me to see a sophisticated music, almost club-like, in a “stadium” context (even though we were in a park), something I had never experienced actually. The impression of having seen the greatest band of our times remains, but rarely did I have the impression of witnessing music history, something that instead happened with the great Kraftwerk. In their evolution, Radiohead seemed like an intelligent, motivated, and ultimately honest group, but they don't deserve the oceanic crowd that in the end expected their classics. During the classics, however, Radiohead seemed old and stale, as if ultimately this great music Radiohead never made it. But mostly it seemed to me they didn't quite believe it themselves, they almost seemed like a cover band of themselves. Better then to see them convinced in doing new things, even if then these new things don't interest me much: one appreciates the intricate structures and the delicacies in the arrangements, but I have to say I wasn't that moved. Maybe I am no longer capable of being moved.
3) Therefore I no longer want big events. Perhaps I no longer want live music, I no longer want to spend money and grind the km, to stand for two hours, but I hope to change my mind. I'm tired, now I want to return home. And I do not deny that the end of the concert has been for me like the longed-for triple whistle that calls to end a match that has foundered in a substantial draw: a few thoughts, a bit of fatigue, a bit of fuss that have made the perfect balance for a good flag planted on the curriculum. A flag that, however, is bitterly tinged with the awareness that I didn't have fun. Maybe now, and in a few days, I am and will be happy to have gone anyway (better to have broken up, than never to have met, right?), but I would be lying if I said that, at that exact moment, I had fun.
And in the end, only the present matters.
Goodnight everyone.
Sorry.
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