Radiohead tend to the cosmic counter

Radiohead is the best band this country has produced since – Pink Floyd. And, I ain’t kidding – have seen the lot of them, including Led Zeppelin, vintage David Bowie and The Clash. No doubt that Radiohead are in a league above Coldplays, Blurs or any other pretenders for the Rock crown; the simple reason being – there is no real competition.

These original’s music is hypnotic, it is like a good (unless oxymoron) drug that invades your body and takes care of your spiritual (and plenty of corporal) needs. Combining musique-sans-frontier (although they wisely keep off country and rap) with arrangement that usually roundtrip the universe with guitar decorating it from the futuristic perimeter – always expending, forever discovering new ‘planets’ – and that whining-cum-haunting vocal of Thom Yorke, it reads like a formula for downspiralling...

Radiohead are stern musicians who inhabit the post-materialist realm where light, albeit a pinpointed ray, shines at the end of the future’s tunnel. There are vague and paranoid warnings by Yorke but if you ain’t concerned, you might as well as be living in Hollywood. Radiohead are realists who reflect ugly reality in a mystical, idealistic manner because they can see that under all the failings, tonne of issues and numerous tragedies – you can find the basic goodness, hope, beauty.

As Sir Macca was adding another page to his nostalgia scrapbook – imagine, ‘Back In The USSR’ finally played in, wait… there isn’t one! – Radiohead were completing their week-of-small-venues UK tour to present us with their new opus, ‘Hail To The Thief’; the album title is a political comment whatever the band members say and however they try to wiggle out of its pointing at the White House.

Formed a decade and a half ago the band’s amassed enough material for someone’s favourite songs to be missing in their rotating set-list (such as ‘Karma Police’ or ‘Pyramid Song’ tonight) but there is enough quality for no one to be complaining. New songs – the magnificent single ‘There There’, ‘2 + 2 = 5’, ‘Go To Sleep’ – seamlessly fit in with the oldies (‘Just’, ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Idioteque’) and instantly feel familiar. No, it is not the case of repeat-to-reconfirm but the band’s developed its own recognizable sound that, magically, refuses to stand still. Regardless of everyone knowing the new songs via the wonder of the ‘Net, these tracks would have worked live with this hardcore following that snapped tickets within minutes.

The Pink Floyd comparison is also valid as far as the band’s profile and, although they are not “The greatest faceless band on the planet” as the Floyds were, you can imagine Yorke travelling on a public transport and not being bothered. They don’t have a zany bassist (alike Blur’s Alex James) or PR-disastrous vocalist (Liam Gallagher) or behave like ‘stars’ (any name will do)… Thom Yorke verily reminds of Peter Gabriel with his contemplations, anxieties, insights and preference for seclusion rather than spending time justifying meanings to media folk.

Radiohead are tiramisu for the soul. Now, look at the opening sentence again. Period.

Complete set-list:

‘There There’
‘2 + 2 =5’
‘The National Anthem’
‘Morning Bell’
‘Scatterbrain’
‘Go To Sleep’
‘Climbing Up The Walls’
‘Backdrift’
‘Sail To The Moon’
‘Sit Down. Stand Up’
‘No Surprises’
‘Talk Show Host’
‘Where I End And You Begin’
‘Paranoid Android’
‘Idioteque’
‘Everything In Its Right Place’
¤ 1st Encore
‘I Might Be Wrong’
‘The Gloaming’
‘Myxamatosis’
‘Lucky’
¤ 2nd Encore
‘Fake Plastic Trees’
‘How To Disappear Completely’