A little preface to today’s entry. Readers take note: you might only want to read this if a) you never ever miss one of my entries or b) you are totally into Radiohead or at least like them somewhat. The only person I know for sure reads every entry AND loves Radiohead is my brother Jay, so JAY – THIS IS FOR YOU.

Before I get into the total and complete awesomeness of last night’s show please have a look at my new favorite song. This is not from the shows I’ve seen but it is from this tour and I am TOTALLY OBSESSED WITH DOWN IS THE NEW UP.

My god. It has it all. It is funky. Thom’s vocals are fantastic. Jonny does that crunchy thing with his guitar that I love. And that plaintive wailing sound that Ed does on his guitar… it kills me. And the DRUMMING. I have seen them play this live twice in the past two nights and it is so fantastic live. Wow.

That clip ends before the song does but you can listen (and try to watch) the whole thing here. It is worth it to hear Ed’s guitar weirdness at the end and watch Jonny on both guitar and drums.

As for Monday. In retrospect I wonder, if all those loud filler fans were bugging me so much, why didn’t I move? Ah, I tell myself, because you were on the rail and that is a pretty hard thing to give up. It’s sad though, some of those girls that got crushed in the front and had to be pulled out by security post on some of the message boards I read. There are accounts of fingernails in flesh and kicks in the legs… all to get to the front. And those girls were the ones waiting in line for twelve hours to get on the rail. I should consider myself lucky I guess.

One good thing that came out of Monday’s blah-ness was, I was too bummed to go out and party, therefore I had a great deal of energy for yesterday’s show and the aftermath, and I was gonna need it.

There were a few of us hanging out at last night’s show. Mark was there, my friend Jen, David, and a guy I met at the Sigur Ros show in Austin, Juan Carlos. I had this intense conversation with Juan Carlos at an Austin bar about Radiohead and he is pretty obsessed too so having him there last night was really cool. Like when we were sitting outside the venue drinking wine before the show and I said “I predict they will open with Airbag” I could get an answer like “definitely possible. They opened with Airbag in Berkeley and Chicago.” And then of course when they DID open with Airbag I had someone to look at with that knowing look.

I know. We are freaks.

So anyway, once again I went into the venue only fifteen minutes before Radiohead went on, but this time went over to Ed’s side. I stupidly asked Mark to go get me a drink, as of course when the band went on there was no way he was going to get close to us again. Me, Juan Carlos and Jen managed to get very, very close. Not quite this close – but almost:

 

Jealous much? I am like, totally jealous of MYSELF right now. I am serious. I could see Ed for every single minute, and that guy is HOT.

The crowd around me at this show was great, really cool and mellow people who were totally into it. And respectful, and didn’t sing, or scream CREEP. There were a couple of obnoxious girls who pushed their way in, created some havoc and then very quickly removed themselves, but other than that it was all good. I had no desire to try to make it to the rail even though I couldn’t see as well (the above picture was probably taken by a six foot five dude, many of which were standing in the way.) I just listened and watched what I could through the forest of necks and sometimes I just looked up at the sky and thought to myself, it is really, really great to be alive, and much of that is due to my love for this band.

Here are  more pictures from the show. Many thanks to May May and Shoestar for these.

May May got this one of Jonny playing his guitar with a violin bow during Pyramid Song.

Another of May May’s photos of Thom and Jonny.

A good shot from the front by Shoestar.

The whole show was so fantastic. Like I said yesterday, all the new songs sound so sweet live. I got my Pyramid Song, I got my Like Spinning Plates (though some dude sang it next to me pretty badly, but I was in the kind of mood where that was just kind of funny.) Bones is probably my least favorite song from The Bends but when they played it last night, it was like, MY GOD. I mean, when Ed, Thom and Jonny are all RIPPING on their guitars it is just, well, beyond thrilling. Another highlight for me was Climbing up the Walls, it sounded so intense and so lush and it was hot and humid and the sky was the color of bittersweet chocolate. I’ll say it again – WOW. THESE are the moments I live for.

After the show I bought a shirt and some Stanley Donwood notecards . I am a good letter writer, and I need to write some letters in those puppies. But first I need someone to write to. I remember after the Radiohead show at the Greek in L.A. in 2000 I wrote someone a four-page letter about it. Guess I have my blog now, where I can at least edit myself.

After the show we all went to Joe’s Crab Shack and had a drink and where Mark tried to piss everyone off by saying it wasn’t that great of a show (“go kick that guys ASS” I jokingly told him when some youngster with a bad sixties hairdo gave him shit at the bar for it) and then just me, David and Juan Carlos went to, of all places, Dick’s Last Resort, a place I would have NEVER gone to if it hadn’t been the only place serving food at midnight on a Tuesday night. Still, nachos and a bottle of cheap Merlot seemed to round off the night nicely.

And I still have one more show. Last night I was an exceptional person: someone with an L.A. ticket. Fucking A. I am still waiting for Black Star and The Tourist. We shall see.

You can listen to both shows, for now anyway, HERE.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 28th, 2006 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Adventures in Rock and Roll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.