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Sometime over the past year or two, in the interim
between ‘Amnesiac’ and the fully-realised now, little
known connoisseur of the mashed-up lo-fi ditty 0898
Dave made a tune called ‘Cheer Up’ available to
the world for consumption. It ran: “Cheer up Thomy Y,
cheer up Thomy Y, it might never ‘appen, might never
‘appen, cheer up Thomy Y”. It was sharp, concise and
rather sweet. Though alas, widespread acclaim never
beckoned, it got a few plays on XFM and remained a wry,
unknown piece of kitch observational art. But fuck me,
Dave. You may well have actually done the trick. If
you’ve got the time we’ve got an expanse of more pressing
impossibilities you can work on?
Thom Yorke (aka Thomy Y) stands at the lip of the stage
during ‘Idiotheque’, as he does many times tonight during
many other songs, with a wayward smile plastered obtusely
across his boney face like a hurried Picasso. His pupils
dart like hidden eyes behind a painting, scouring the
four packed tiers of the theatre, fanned by the frantic
beats, as if he’s attempting individual eye contact
with one and all. His arms are extended above his head.
His features are bright and attentive. He is happy.
More than that. He is physically content, emotionally
confident and actually participating. For possibly the
first time in who knows how long, maybe ever, he seems
a participant in his own play (and an overzealous one
at that), rather than being prodded from the wings,
shackled in the ill-fitting boots of a caricature.
‘Kid A’, ‘Amnesiac’ and their respective live shows
may, in eyes aplenty, have signalled the deepest and
most uncharted of dives into indulgence since Kevin
Rowland dressed up a bit at Reading and left the handbag
with the decent tunes in his dressing room. But what
their detractors failed to credit, or even notice, is
that their live heart beat stronger than ever before
during that period, as skewiff a time signature as it
may have had. It’s like they’d taken themselves off
the treadmill that the ground beneath their feet had
become. They became comfortable, balanced, unconstrained.
You could even go so far as to say they came of age,
and without conceding to the creative downgrading that
could have entailed.
Ardent ‘OK Computer’, ‘Bends’ and ‘Creep’ fans might
have played the fragile conservative folkies to Radiohead’s
Dylan at the Albert Hall, but if they’d attended 2000’s
tented gigs or 2001’s homecoming spectacle in Oxford,
they’d have seen a band heaping meat onto their bones
when the commonplace conception was that they were hacking
it off with sterilised blades. The likes of ‘Morning
Bell’ and ‘National Anthem’ tonight still have a live
pulse that sends the head spinning, one that’s not faded
with time or perspective or been crushed in the stampede
back to the guitars of ‘There There’. ‘Morning Bell’
in particular sounds like a band building and resetting
their boundaries with a discarded elegance and should
number amongst one of the very best from their career
span.
Some tracks do stand awkwardly back to back, some are
incompatible, some new ones (‘Scatterbrain’ and ‘Backdrifts’
for instance) don’t lend themselves to the unfamiliarity
that a live unveiling presents. Not that it is an unveiling
for many here tonight, already driven by impatience
and online literacy. But what practically every song
does present is a snap of a band, or machine – as that
is effectively what such efficiency, composure and power
normally manifests itself as – towering over or circling
every peak they find themselves on or around. Ed O’Brien
has been recently dropping the word “swagger” in interviews
to describe their continuing live confidence. If it
lacks the actual poise of a ‘swagger’ then it is certainly
no less than a big beautiful ‘lurch’.
The new stuff, then. The reason for their continued
and mutating satisfaction and existence. The accelerant
that has transformed Thomy Y from reclusive Dungeon
Master to the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a flamboyant
drunk overconfidence and Tim Booth’s shoes. The point
of these ridiculously small shows. It’s naturally hard
to interpret the songs at face value when they, on first
impressions, carry over the slow-burning, long-term-investment
that they found so comforting those last two records.
The dividing line between albums again sounds vague,
but this time the jugular never seems out of reach.
‘Sail To The Moon’ is a ‘Pyramid Song’ done concert
hall Jeff Buckley style, ‘The Gloaming’ is as sinister,
soiled and looming as the title hints, and an amazing
‘There There’ also takes on a slight Bad Seeds flavour
uniquely in the flesh, acting as a raft for much-stronger-then-the-single
vocals from Thom. Then there is ‘2+2=5’. It follows
‘There There’ with dizzying off-beats and warped ambience
before booting off its own head with their most infuriating,
jagged and passionate bombast since ‘Electioneering’,
double time, harder, faster, stronger. It feels like
it can’t really be followed. But they manage.
They’ve grown to be wilfully obstinate, it could certainly
be interpreted that way anyway – take Thom waging of
a defensive war against every stereotype ever cast at
him, to the point where he’ll now swear ash-grey is
Persil-white as further blackened embers fall around
him. Or at least gibber random eccentricities from time
to time. It’s far from a callous obstinance though,
that can be seen on every face onstage. They’ve found
enjoyment in it and, without compromising that indulgence,
they truly believe you could too. This is their art,
in spite of it, like all art, borrowing from other people’s
art, and in a less puritanical way. Tonight though maybe
this discussion is rendered irrelevant. After all, one
man’s obstinance is a partisan Radiohead crowd’s g-spot. Relevant sites:
http://www.ateaseweb.com/ 
James Berry for Crud Magazine© 2003
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