Radiohead Live - OK Computer Tour

December 24, 2006 11:59 PM

Merry Christmas, Metafilter! In the spirit of the holiday, my gift for the Radiohead fans among you is this entire Radiohead concert (Google Vid), a non-bootleg produced for MTV originally recording from the OK Computer tour back in 1997. For the non-Radiohead fans, my gift is that I forgive you your imperfections. And finally, for those who don't celebrate Christmas, my gift is that I made you a cookie... but then I eated it.
posted by jonson (39 comments total)

Mmm. Cat cookies. You really should grind your cat flour finer, though.
posted by loquacious at 12:07 AM on December 25, 2006

Oh god - that picture gave me a hernia I laughed so hard.
posted by vronsky at 12:30 AM on December 25, 2006

Yeah, I don't have time to watch the concert (but thanks jonson, I'll have to get around to watching it later) but that cat pic made a fantastic consolation prize.
posted by Stunt at 12:37 AM on December 25, 2006

Thanks for that. I've seen Radiohead twice live, and the second time I talked a friend into going who was ambivalent about the band. After the concert he was a fully converted fan and bought all their albums.

Their live shows are phenomenal.

(as for the cat pic, more can be found here. I laughed until my stomach hurt (a sure sign of my general immaturity)).
posted by zardoz at 12:46 AM on December 25, 2006 [2 favorites]

never seen radiohead live but meeting people is easy is a favorite of mine and large sections of this performance feature in that film
posted by headless at 12:58 AM on December 25, 2006

jonson, is it not too soon to say I love you? Because I do. Thanks for this.
posted by jmhodges at 1:00 AM on December 25, 2006

This was after they became recognizably the band they are today, though Thom didn't loosen up and start dancing like a crazy person at shows until the tours for Kid A and Amnesiac. As someone who didn't get into the band until 99 or 2000, watching video of them from before about 1995 or 96 is always a bit weird. In video from Befre, they all look really young, and most of the band members have terrible haircuts (check out Colin and his pony tail in the Astoria DVD!).

I've got a DVD of the unedited performance this video's constructed from (along with a couple other from the tour). The argument between radiohead's (amazing) lighting engineer and the MTV people in Meeting People Is Easy always struck me as kinda funny.

I'd rather have a complete video of their Glastonbury set than this one, but this is still a great show.

I really wish there were some way to get people who say the band makes miserable, depressing music down front at a performance. They're an incredibly powerful band live, and manage to turn even the most abstract recordings into emotionally moving performances (take, for example, this performance of the title track from Kid A, and compare it to the album version).
posted by sparkletone at 1:14 AM on December 25, 2006

To go with the Christmas and googlevideo tags I'll add "The Junky's Christmas" by William S. Burroughs
posted by Tenuki at 1:50 AM on December 25, 2006

They put on a great show in Vancouver a couple years ago, including an encore of Karma Police with Michael Stipes (I'm not a huge REM, especially lately, but it was a pretty cool moment nonetheless).

sparkletone, "powerful" and "emotionally moving" are not necessarily mutually exclusive from "miserable" and "depressing", though I agree that, live, their music has an energy to it that lessens this effect (notably, so does seeing them with 40,000 other people).

Probably my favorite recording is from 2002 at the Bridge School Benefit show in San Fran. Yorke did solo acoustic or piano renditions of everything from Street Spirit to I Might Be Wrong. Incredibly well done. Moreover, because Neil Young was playing at the show, Yorke played a version of After The Goldrush. He also played a great version of There There before it was released (one I favour over the recorded version, which I also like).
posted by The God Complex at 1:53 AM on December 25, 2006

I feel bad; I didn't get you anything..
posted by hypersloth at 3:21 AM on December 25, 2006

Nice!
posted by flippant at 4:54 AM on December 25, 2006

what if we think Radiohead suck?
posted by anonaccount at 5:51 AM on December 25, 2006

Yeah, if you do "depressing" with a huge excited crowd of like-minded people, it turns into "cathartic" pretty quickly. (Hey, it worked for the Greeks.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:01 AM on December 25, 2006

Better cat caption "I want to attack and kill you.. you cut off my damn claws"
posted by stbalbach at 6:38 AM on December 25, 2006

Seen 'em twice:

The first show was the very last stop on the OK Computer tour in a 3,000-capacity theater. This tour, of course, was the one during which Meeting People is Easy was shot, and the band did seem exhausted and numb. They didn't look like they were having a very good time, and I guess they weren't.

The second was years later, somewhere in the Kid A/Amnesiac era. It was in one of those huge outdoor amphitheaters. Fortunately I had good seats, because this concert was the polar opposite of the last: they were effusive and gracious and having a blast turning these weird, quasi-avant-rock songs into full on jams. Great show.
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas at 6:43 AM on December 25, 2006

what if we think Radiohead suck?

Then you're either an troll or a moron for posting in what is essentially a Radiohead appreciation thread.
posted by Mikey-San at 9:47 AM on December 25, 2006

Best of the web? *Scoff* I side with annonaccount.
posted by p3on at 10:40 AM on December 25, 2006

Well, jonson forgives your imperfections. But I do not, and in the xmas spirit, I wish you whiny fuckheads that have to come to threads just to say you don't like something would fucking die. Merry xmas.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:50 AM on December 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

Best of the web? *Scoff* I side with annonaccount.

45 comments in over a year on Metafilter and you waste one on that? Die in a yule-log fire.

People that spend so much time telling everyone what they don't like are the same people everyone avoids at parties.
posted by The God Complex at 11:20 AM on December 25, 2006 [1 favorite]

Having flown this year several thousand miles so that I could attend the small venue gigs they played in England and Amsterdam in May, I need no convincing about their potency live-- the last half hour or so of the first Blackpool show was one of the great musical experiences of my life.

Thanks jonson, and it's nice to see more or less a RH appreciation thread.

Yeah, if you do "depressing" with a huge excited crowd of like-minded people, it turns into "cathartic" pretty quickly

Yeah, in spades. Nothing like several thousand people all screaming "Ice age coming!" at the top of their lungs to make you feel all giddy inside.
posted by jokeefe at 11:58 AM on December 25, 2006

check out Colin and his pony tail in the Astoria DVD!)

Nah, the real story in the Astoria DVD is Ed, with his pirate shirt hanging open and his repetoire of Rock God moves and faces-- at one point he makes a charge at Jonny, leading with the headstock of his guitar and Jonny responds with a visible WTF. It made me laugh so hard I had to stop watching.

A friend of mine described early RH as "a sea of dork." She's not far wrong.
posted by jokeefe at 12:02 PM on December 25, 2006

sparkletone: One of my favourite performances of Kid A, from Dublin in May of 2003, the very beginning of the Hail to the Thief tour, audience video (I remember when I got a copy of this in that year, and how cool it was to share it-- YouTube has rendered that kind of insider feeling obsolete, and actually I think that's a good thing). "This is the one where I get to do the really difficult keyboard bit", says Thom. "Check it out." You can really get the sense of the excitement in the venue-- a tiny theatre full of hard core fans.

God Complex: I was at the Vancouver show, and it was indeed a great moment having Stipe come out to sing Karma Police, but the first note he hit (he was supposed to be singing Ed's backing vocals) was so blatantly off-key that Thom messed up the lines of the verse and Ed took over singing the backing part. Stipe did manage the chorus well though, and there was much good will in the audience so I don't think anybody really cared.
posted by jokeefe at 12:14 PM on December 25, 2006

Ah, okay, just one more YouTube link: How to Disappear Completely, filmed by Dilly Gent, Dublin, 2000. Breathtaking.
posted by jokeefe at 12:27 PM on December 25, 2006

Probably my favorite recording is from 2002 at the Bridge School Benefit show in San Fran. Yorke did solo acoustic or piano renditions of everything from Street Spirit to I Might Be Wrong. Incredibly well done. Moreover, because Neil Young was playing at the show, Yorke played a version of After The Goldrush. He also played a great version of There There before it was released (one I favour over the recorded version, which I also like).

I've got both sets from the Bridge Benefit. Lovely stuff. I think my favorite of the stripped down shows is the one Thom and Jonny did for some French TV thingy that features them playing all kinds of stuff (including a stunning Thom-solo run of Fog) intercut with an interview with all five band members.

The French TV thingy's got all the stuff you point to except the great After The Goldrush (which I think I like more when Thom plays just the last verse before launching EIIRP). The just-piano EIIRP loses out something over the one with the drum machine thumping on the down beat and Thom introducing it by saying, "Disco... So far, this is disco."

I'd also recommend getting the recent From The Basement performances to people who like the stripped down stuff. I think both of the songs Thom plays are much stronger with the full band, but like all great songs, they're still great when you strip all that stuff away.

(I remember when I got a copy of this in that year, and how cool it was to share it-- YouTube has rendered that kind of insider feeling obsolete, and actually I think that's a good thing).

Nah. The insiders end up with uncompressed DVDs from DimeADozen, or something, rather than little flash videos on YouTube.

YouTube just makes it really easy to show people what I mean when I say the song Kid A really makes me want to dance.
posted by sparkletone at 12:53 PM on December 25, 2006

If all my Christmases involved Radiohead concerts, I wouldn't be so inclined to convert to Judaism.
posted by Saellys at 1:11 PM on December 25, 2006

Thanks Jonson for the the treat, and I found next to it "Creep," which I really love.
posted by semmi at 2:00 PM on December 25, 2006

sparkletone: fire me an e-mail (pgrant ___@___ gmail.com--without any of the spacing/underscores). I have a few questions for you ;)
posted by The God Complex at 2:44 PM on December 25, 2006

Nah, the real story in the Astoria DVD is Ed, with his pirate shirt hanging open and his repetoire of Rock God moves and faces-- at one point he makes a charge at Jonny, leading with the headstock of his guitar and Jonny responds with a visible WTF. It made me laugh so hard I had to stop watching.

Hee. I don't think I've noticed the charge and WTF (thanks, spastic video editor!). But, yeah. The pirate shirt, slicked back hair... It's hilarious.

It's also kinda funny how little Jonny's appearance has changed (Phil has since achieved Perfect Posture when he's playing, instead of slouching, and is also now playing in nice suits).

A friend of mine described early RH as "a sea of dork." She's not far wrong.

It's true. But they got better over time. The Astoria DVD, for instance, is less embarassing than their MTV Beach House performance you can find on YouTube. That was just about the height of Thom's Bad Hair Day.
posted by sparkletone at 3:35 PM on December 25, 2006

Oh.

I've implied this in other comments, but I should be clear: This video's not the entire concert, exactly. It is the entirety of what was broadcast by MTV for that episode of Live At The Ten Spot. But it's missing songs, etc, etc.

This is the the complete setlist, and matches the unedited video I've got.
posted by sparkletone at 3:46 PM on December 25, 2006

The Astoria DVD, for instance, is less embarassing than their MTV Beach House performance you can find on YouTube. That was just about the height of Thom's Bad Hair Day.

I have not yet been able to bring myself to watch Anyone Can Play Guitar from that performance, even though I know I am missing Thom's great near-death experience pool jump. I've tried, but I just can't do it. And yeah, Blonde Extension Thom is the worst.
posted by jokeefe at 10:48 PM on December 25, 2006

I have not yet been able to bring myself to watch Anyone Can Play Guitar from that performance, even though I know I am missing Thom's great near-death experience pool jump. I've tried, but I just can't do it. And yeah, Blonde Extension Thom is the worst.

Contrary to the lyrics of that song, growing your hair is not enough to make you anything like Jim Morrison. Thom seems to have tried for a while though. Hee.

My favorite part of that particular performance is the Come On Pilgrim-era-Black-Francis shrieks Thom lets out for little-to-no-reason part way through the song. About the only other time I can recall hearing him scream like that is during some performances of Airbag (like the one in the FPP link).
posted by sparkletone at 11:29 PM on December 25, 2006

what if we think Radiohead suck?

Then you're either an troll or a moron for posting in what is essentially a Radiohead appreciation thread.

or maybe he's trying to make you less stupid.

you should appreciate his attempt.
posted by jcterminal at 1:10 AM on December 26, 2006

Then you're either an troll or a moron for posting in what is essentially a Radiohead appreciation thread.

Damn. I never realized all those Bush metafilter posts were actually appreciation threads.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:00 AM on December 26, 2006

My favorite part of that particular performance is the Come On Pilgrim-era-Black-Francis shrieks Thom lets out for little-to-no-reason part way through the song.

Let's not forget "Fat! Ugly! Dead!"

Oh, and seconds on the Bridge School Benefit sets, the Reservoir DVD, Canal Plus, and basically any time Thom and Jonny have performed the songs acoustically-- the Electric Ladyland performance from 2003 is fanastic; best version of No Surprises ever.

But they got better over time.

Musical understatement of the month, that. :D
posted by jokeefe at 12:48 PM on December 26, 2006

Oh and of course From the Basement. Videotape sounds fine there, though I miss the drum part; and I have a sort of love-hate relationship with DITNU. Very interested to see what they do with it in the studio.

What do you think of the reworked Big Ideas (it'll always be Big Ideas to me...)?
posted by jokeefe at 12:54 PM on December 26, 2006

"Big Ideas" just sounds empty without the Wurlitzer and Ed's guitar outro.
posted by Saellys at 4:43 PM on December 26, 2006

"Big Ideas" just sounds empty without the Wurlitzer and Ed's guitar outro.

It's been stated, or at least implied, somewhere or other that Nude (I've chose to refer to pre-recent tour versions of the song as Big Ideas, but use the band's name for the new version) is one of the songs getting some big string section loving, so I doubt it'll be anywhere near as stripped down on record.

Though, honestly, I wouldn't mind if it was. It puts a lovely spotlight on one of Thom's better vocal melodies.
posted by sparkletone at 8:14 PM on December 26, 2006

It's been stated, or at least implied, somewhere or other

Perhaps here? :)

I too miss the organ and the glockenspiel (not to mention Jonny doing that "playing two instruments at the same time" thing). I honestly don't think they can improve on the 1998 Big Ideas, though I appreciate the focus on Thom's voice in the new one-- you could hear a pin drop in the halls when the band dropped out, leaving him to complete the line "you'll go to hell for what your dirty mind is thinking" a cappella, and that part is wonderful, but I'm still very attached to the older version. Judgement reserved until the album, though, assuming it makes it this time. I know they've tried to rewrite it so that it's really a very different song, but... I also just can't warm to the full band version of House of Cards at all-- the Trade Justice version was so perfect in and of itself.
posted by jokeefe at 11:50 PM on December 26, 2006

Perhaps here? :)

Right below that block of photos is a picture of Jonny Greenwood's buttcrack. He's so absorbed in the making of the new album that he didn't even notice it was getting drafty.
posted by Saellys at 3:14 PM on December 28, 2006