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Liberty State Park, Jersey City, N.J. August 17, 2001 By C. Bottomley Radiohead make music in some sort of freeze-dried suspension. Having sung about a technological ice age on their 1997 opus OK Computer, the Oxford, England-based band has spent its last two records applying the chilly dynamics of techno music to tracks boasting cracked voices and distorted instruments. The unusually warm hearts of these tunes could barely thaw their frigid outer shells. They're aloof. They're remote. They're very Oxford. Standing under a New Jersey sun waiting for the band to come on, it was tempting to think that the quintet were forcing their audience to share the same half-life headspace. Roadies took position. Instruments, from a short-wave radio to a battery of guitars to a barroom piano, were set in place. Twilight came and went. But there was no band. New Yorkers who think nothing of playing dodge with cabs wilted. Scotland's Beta Band had performed their own puckish version of melancholia what seemed like hours before, dressing up the nonsensical drip-hop anthems from second album Hot Shots II in silver wigs and cheeky grins, and larking about until all four members were pounding on the drum kits around the stage. As an intermission, DJ Kid Koala seamlessly mixed together Electric Company themes and even Radiohead's own "Fitter Happier" into a crowd-pleasing stunt. Then the Ink Spots' Greatest Hits played over the P.A. Twice. Finally, the band members appeared to notice the slow clap. Or maybe they just finished dinner. But when Radiohead finally emerged from the wings with the growling groove of "The National Anthem," it was truly akin to rolling away the stone. Thom Yorke could now feel the crowd's inertia; he responded by slinging his head from side to side like a distressed hand puppet while samples and static flew into the night. Having watched acclaimed sibling releases Kid A and this year's Amnesiac nearly top the charts, Radiohead are in that no man's land between popularity and pretension. The former was evident in a set that touched nearly every high point in their career. The latter was found in the often-confounding effects. For those who had arrived late via the ferry, the story-high images flanking the stage were filmed by miniscule "lipstick" cameras littered around the band and even inside Yorke's piano. While most stadium-filling acts use video cameras to impart their mythic stature to fans in the nosebleed seats, Radiohead preferred the tense unease of surveillance. Such concerns are not for those who brayed along to OK Computer's "Karma Police," perhaps the oddest song ever to have become a stadium chant. Coming early, that chorus gave the band confidence to embrace its contradictions. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood was just as comfortable fiddling with computer terminals as pounding out the riffs to "I Might Be Wrong" or "My Iron Lung." Un-performable songs from Kid A and Amnesiac, like "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box," were attempted with varying degrees of success. And for a group that tries so hard to be dour, the mask slipped to show them smiling. The music, too, was well worth the wait. The unimpeachable songs, like "No Surprises" and "Paranoid Android," were played faithfully. Much of Kid A still seemed like a work in progress, although the electronic "Idioteque" sounded like the distant Statue of Liberty was having a nervous breakdown while Thom Yorke danced like a gibbon before her. Amnesiac, played almost in its entirety, is more gorgeous with each experience - with "Pyramid Song" the saddest moment in a set that saw Yorke's voice constantly flirting with despair. With the exception of Celine Dion, there may be no other singer who can revisit such excruciating emotional territory so many times in the course of one evening. The New York ferry arrived early, although departing fans stayed massed on the docks during the encores to see if Radiohead might grant them a rare airing of "Creep." It wasn't to be, leaving them with only the explosive guitar climax of "Fake Plastic Trees" and the fearsome Klansman's cry of "Tonight we ride" from "You and Whose Army" to molder in their hearts. Off the water, and into the heavy air of Liberty State Park, a cool breeze finally descended. > Read our interview with Radiohead. > Read our review of Amnesiac. > Get tour dates. > Connect with other fans on the Radiohead message board. |
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