Radiohead @ Thunderbird Stadium, Vancouver

I’ve seen my share of Radiohead shows (probably a lot of people’s share of shows, actually) but Tuesday night was my first Radiohead show in the rain. About five minutes before the band took the stage the skies opened up and didn’t let up for the entire gig. The band, however, more than made up for any dampness in my shoes as they, once again, put on an incredible show.

While this was my first time seeing the band this year, I had heard most of the In Rainbows tracks live back in 2006, so as the gig began I was keen to hear a few songs I hadn’t yet heard and even more keen to see the lighting rig I had heard so much about. Radiohead delivered on both fronts. In fact, Jigsaw Falling Into Place, a song I hadn’t seen live before, was one of my favourite songs in the entire set. The way the band build the tension in the song as it approaches it’s final verse is just nuts.

The gig featured the entirety of In Rainbows as well as Bangers + Mash interspersed with crowd favourites (Karma Police) and Sean favourites (Exit Music). Actually, I often say I never need to see Karma Police live again but on Tuesday night it was one of my favourite moments as the crowd actually stopped surging around and just screamed all the lyrics back to the band. It was a nice little moment.

Throughout the gig Thom occasionally addressed the crowd…mostly to tell off the idiots. Ed, as always, was a great cheerleader, and Jonny seemed to be very posey. Despite the weather and the crowd the band seemed to be having a really great time on stage.

The gig got pretty special in the first encore. After dispensing with House of Cards, the band trotted out Optimistic (I’d never seen it live before!), You And Whose Army? (Thom cam!), and then Planet Telex. Now, a lot has been said about how amazing/beautiful/seizure-inducing the lights are on this tour, but nothing prepared me for the kinetic, rainbow assault that was Planet Telex. It was jaw dropping. The encore then ended with a crowd-assisted Everything In Its Right Place. You can’t get much better an encore than that.

The band then returned for a final encore including Reckoner (beeeeeautiful), 2+2=5, and a request…of sorts. Before the last song Thom gave the audience the choice between Idioteque and Paranoid Android and the crowd roared louder for the OKC classic so off the band went. As Thom sang the “rain down on me” refrain, the crowd flung their arms skyward and embraced the rain as it continued to fall. It was a great end to a gig that, in retrospect, I enjoyed more than I thought I did at the time.

Setlist
15 Step
There There
Morning Bell
All I Need
Where I End And You Begin
Talk Show Host
Nude
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
The National Anthem
Bangers And Mash
Faust Arp
Videotape
Karma Police
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Just
Exit Music (For A Film)
Bodysnatchers
———
House of Cards
Optimistic
You And Whose Army?
Planet Telex
Everything In Its Right Place
———
Reckoner
2+2=5
Paranoid Android

I’ve got photos up here.

***
Other bits and pieces from the night…
*Cheryl from At Ease has an annotated setlist. Thanks as always Cheryl…and it was great to meet you. Again.
*Since they didn’t play it in Seattle either, I’ll have to settle for hearing Go Slowly in the Vancouver soundcheck.
*Seriously, what was up with all the pushing in Vancouver crowd? It certainly made it harder to enjoy the gig.
*And the lineup fiasco…my god. Radiohead need a Line Czar and that needs to be me.
*If you’re torrent savvy, you can already download a recording of the gig here.

Seattle review/photos/video coming a bit later.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 7:16 pm and is filed under General, Photos, Radiohead, Reviews, Setlists, Shows, Vancouver. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.