Friday, September 3, 2010

Radiohead in concert -- amateur video, professional audio

A group of Radiohead fans went to a recent show in Prague "on a mission to capture the band playing using as many different angles as possible." Radiohead found out about this and provided the audio so that the fans could piece everything together into proper videos.

Here are a few of the songs. You can see them all here.

I am a bit shocked by how much they've turned their backs on their great '90s albums, The Bends and OK Computer.

"2 + 2 = 5"




"Airbag"




"All I Need"




"Nice Dream"

6 comments:

zdwyatt said...

I am a bit shocked by how much they've turned their backs on their great '90s albums, The Bends and OK Computer.

I think they do a reasonably good job pulling from their catalogue. A quick scan of that set list reveals that they played about five songs each from In Rainbows, Hail to the Thief, and Kid A/Amnesiac, with two or three each from OK Computer and The Bends. And it makes sense that they'd pull more heavily from recent albums, partly because that's what they're touring to support, and partly because they probably want to play new songs. How many times must they have played "Creep" at this point? Come to think of it, that set list had no songs from Pablo Honey...

Nice find, though. I love that the band is on board with this.

John Althouse Cohen said...

A quick scan of that set list reveals that they played about five songs each from In Rainbows, Hail to the Thief, and Kid A/Amnesiac, with two or three each from OK Computer and The Bends.

Yes, this is the problem! No "Just," "Fake Plastic Trees," "My Iron Lung," "Paranoid Android," etc. Only two songs from The Bends, their best album.

I realize they're playing more songs from In Rainbows because that's their latest album. I just think this is unfortunate. If you see Prince in concert, he doesn't focus on his latest album, because he knows his earlier songs are better and more popular. Of course, this is a matter of opinion, but I think there are a lot of fans who feel the way I do about The Bends.

zdwyatt said...

Well, sure. Any Radiohead fan worth their salt will rank The Bends as the best album (myself included). I suspect they would do very well if they did a tour consisting of nothing but that album played start to finish.

John Althouse Cohen said...

Well, sure. Any Radiohead fan worth their salt will rank The Bends as the best album (myself included).

Tell that to beckett! He thinks it's only their 5th-best album. Glad we agree.

Blair said...

If you expect Radiohead to wallow in their back catalogue and not act as artists should do and present their latest creations, then you clearly do not get Radiohead and are not a proper fan.

If you want those songs, listen to their albums or see a tribute band, who could probably do them better justice anyway. I'd rather they do something fresh and not become the Rolling Stones or the Beach Boys.

John Althouse Cohen said...

As mentioned above, Radiohead does play songs from The Bends and OK Computer in concert. There's no question of them playing only their latest songs. I'm just talking about adjusting the ratio. There's much more room for creative judgment in which songs a band chooses to play than your comment suggests.