Radiohead at South Park: Classic or Dud?

Send our regards and best wishes, if she'll have 'em from semi-strangers. Forgot RH were on SP: T.Yorke will have work hard to beat Robert Smith's epochal perf (and representation).

Hurrah for Laura indeed! :-) *much merriment*

As to South Park, well... you know how they say that Radiohead fans are miserable, wet bastards? Well, they're right. Literally. I have never been so fucking rained on in all my life. I can't BELIEVE that all day, the weather held, with only a few sprinkles during Beck, and then the moment the sun went down, and Radiohead were going into their glory, the fucking clouds let loose and we were subject to the sort of downpour that would make Noah give up.

All in all, my impressions are a bit soured because of the weather. And I hate festivals. Even "no-brand, no logo, non-corporate" festivals like Radiohead's, it just didn't stop the sheer awfulness of what makes festivals crap just cause the beer mugs had crying bears instead of Budweiser logos. Too many people, crap sound, and the huge TV monitors around the site were only turned on for Radiohead's set. And they showed exactly what was broadcast across the web. Why were we even there?

Because of stupid EMI and their stupid contest winners we were delayed for HOURS and we didn't get to the site until a bit before Sigur Ros went on. OK, without EMI we wouldn't have even been there, so props and all, but I was still annoyed, as we missed Rock of Travolta, who are fast becoming one of my favourite new bands. But they said that they had a good time, and it went well, despite the mindfuck of a little indie band in their first time in front of 20,000 people.

Sigur Ros were...

Well, they suffered from the same problem that basically *ALL* of the bands, except maybe the excrable Supergrass (who we ignored to hang backstage and drink champagne with the lovely Rock). Take some very atmospheric, beautiful music, best listened to in the quiet and relaxation of your own home, on headphones in the dark- and then listen to them in a rain-soaked field with 42,000 people. There was a special roped-off area at the front, to prevent crowd crush, which was fucking great for the people who got there early, and the people with "Access Most Areas" passes, but for the rest of us, it just meant that we saw even less.

Paul's surmisal of Sigur Ros's entire set was "We're seeing what is possibly the best band of the day, and all I can hear is people around me talking, and all I can see is a tye-die banner, and a blue rubber chicken."

They did their best, they had a string section and everything, but they just couldn't overcome the sheer size of the place.

Supergrass, as I said, are not my cup of tea. We went backstage and played spot the celebrity (hey, there's Robert Carlisle! Hey, there's Kate Moss! Hey, there's Meg Matthews!) with our mates.

Beck was, unfortunately, playing a moody, introspective acoustic set. You know, the one performer who had the stage show, the moves and the personality to fill a field of 40,000 with the funk, and he was playing mopey ballads. Very short set, couldn't even tell you what he played, cause I couldn't hear him.

I do have to admit that Radiohead were on top form musically. I just wish we could have heard them or seen them better. Of course, it was mainly geared towards the newer "electronica" stuff (which amazingly becomes quite RAWK live, freeform jams which take shape and grow interestingly instead of wibbling squelching nonsense) but they did pull out some of the stadium rock numbers. I mean, yeah, Creep was the last encore. (How many encores did they do? 3? 4? I lost count, cause I was so miserable and wet and seeking shelter in the t-shirt tent) They did Airbag and Paranoid Android and My Iron Lung and all the singles and stuff.

Oh, and they did Talk Show Host, which was a nice surprise. And for me the best moments were the huge dance jams like Idioteque and I Might Be Wrong. They are a fantastically good live band, but... it just wasn't worth braving 42,000 people and the worst weather Oxford has ever seen, to see them. If you stayed home and watched the webcast, you had a better time.

Bears? Does this remind you of any other cult bands logo technique? Forget goths, are Radiohead fans the new hippies?

Anyway, as for the gig, it was just way too big. Whenever I go to these all-day 40,000 capacity things I always dash to the front at 12 noon, stay there all day, and complain I get crushed. This time I stayed at the back, didn't get crushed, got soaked and experienced watching a good Radiohead concert on television outside. In the rain. The video of it will be ace though.

i was at this! it was a good day!

radiohead we alright

I was at this, it was great aside from the rain and the horrific journey back to London.