There are few bands on this planet that I would drop $50 to go see: Sigur Ros for sure. Possibly U2. I'd have to scroll through iTunes to see if there are anymore. Radiohead definitely is one of those bands. And if I'm going to drop $50+ (thanks for all the added fees Ticketmaster, p.s., you suck!) then my face had better be melted off by truckloads of throat-punching awesomeness.
Gentle reader, rest assured, Radiohead does not disappoint. My brother jokingly referred to them as the best British band since The Beatles. Radiohead curb-stomps The Beatles, and virtually every other band, British or otherwise. At times melodic, at times dissonant, and sometimes both at the same time; occasionally brooding but simultaneously leaving you with a sense that "everything is in it's right place," Radiohead simply defies classification and comparison. Someone--a non-Radiohead fan (also known as a musical retard)--might ask you, "What do they sound like?" After smacking them around for a few minutes for not owning any albums you would inform them that Radiohead sounds like everything and nothing, and sometimes something else entirely. Radiohead is a paradox.
The concert was nothing short of amazing, unloading wave-upon-bloody-wave of light, noise and English musical genius, plus plenty of close-ups of Thom Yorke's crazy eye, the lead guitarist/beep-boop-sample guy alternately turning knobs and violently strumming/banging on his guitar to great effect, and the entire band going about its business with a casualness that defies the mind because the music assaulting you is so complex that it just couldn't be that easy.
Stuff I Learned at the Radiohead Concert
1. Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville, IN may be the most poorly laid out and located venue in the history of entertainment venues. Gladiators had less trouble escaping the Roman Coliseum than we did getting out of the parking lot and back to the interstate.
2. Corporate sponsorship has gotten out of hand and is beyond ridiculous. Do I really need Taco Bell to sponsor the intermission. Do they realize that intermissions are nothing but dead space between bands? Does this really need a sponsor.
3. $12 for a large can of crappy American beer (read: goat urine). 12 freaking dollars. I wouldn't pay $12 for a good beer, much less one that looks and tastes (I'm guessing) like urinal runoff. $5 for a large pretzel. $2 dollars for a cup of nacho cheese. $2 for 4 oz. of cheese. Absolutely criminal, and yet, people kept downing beer after beer. Amazing.
4. People smell. The stench of weed smoke, cigarette smoke, beer sweat, bad breath and too many under-washed bodies is nauseating.
5. It takes just under an hour or so to come down off a contact buzz from people smoking weed 5 feet from you.
6. There are two types of people in this world: those who will let you ahead of them in traffic (thereby obeying the Golden Rule) and those that won't. The former are wonderful people who understand that one more car in front of them won't make much difference; the latter are dill-weeds that can't stand the thought of losing that one space in line, possibly adding 5-6 seconds onto how long it take them to get out of the lot. May the lighting bolts of Zeus fall upon their Subarus.
Well, that about does it. Go out and buy all of the Radiohead albums you can get your hands on. Start with In Rainbows (the newest one) or OK Computer (perhaps the best album ever). Thank me later.
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