Radiohead – Malahide Castle – 7th June
What is it with Irish people at gigs? I haven’t been to many gigs overseas but Irish people are the rudest and most inconsiderate pricks at gigs. It just ruins the experience.
Anyway, the music made up for it. Day started with a nice, long and stressful journey out Malahide to a friend of a friends who lives right beside the castle. Scorcher of a day, so we sat around drinking, BBQ’n and getting burnt. The perfect warm up. The venue was about half full when we got there, the sun was still shining and didn’t stop until after 10pm. Beautiful setting for a beautiful gig.
I must mention the trickery of a friend of the friend of a friend, who managed to sneak into the gig. Dressed in slacks, a shirt and a waistcoat, armed with 5 litres of milk and a pass around the neck for some event in Croke Park, they walked right up to the gate and claimed to be delivering milk. When asked for a pass, they showed the Croke Park pass briefly, cracked a joke and in they went, then promptly dumped the milk in a corner somewhere. While this is pure genius and I can’t believe it worked, you’d wonder how many people sneak into these things. Bit harsh on the band in question but then again the price of the ticket was a bit harsh on the regular, honest punter.
So, Bat for Lashes kicked off at about 7pm. My review below was fairly glowing of Natasha Khan’s album ‘Fur and Gold‘, but unfortunately the live experience didn’t live up to it. Not that it was bad it was just a bit dull. The crowd weren’t interested because they were all snobs, impatiently waiting for Radiohead plus the sun was too tempting not to lie on the grass for the evening. The instruments employed were real nice however, including a bizarre one stringed violin sized piece that had a brass horn attached to it, played with a bow, which I must find out what it is. It was good but the album’s better.
After much roadie action and jostling for a good spot in the crowd, Radiohead took to the stage around 8:30.
From start to finish they were perfect, with a minor blip from Johnny on ‘Videotape’, which they promptly stopped and picked up a minute later perfectly. The general perfection was disappointing though. I mean, now I’ve paid €130 to hear the ‘In Rainbows‘ album as it was recorded (€70 for gig, €60 for boxset). Ok fair enough it’s not at the scale of the Tom Waits rip off and I’m happy that I got value for money with the boxset, but I expect more from a performance especially from a band of the calibre of Radiohead.
Anyway, not to be a complete downer, it was still enjoyable. They avoided most of the classics like the majority of their first 3 albums, apart from ‘Planet Telex’, ‘Climbing Up The Walls’ (a highlight) and ‘Airbag’.
The ‘Kid A/Amnesiac‘ songs were brilliant, in this case I’m amazed at how they reproduce this music live. It’s sheer brilliance. Then there was the best from ‘Hail to the Thief‘, no more than 3 songs. They also threw in ‘Bangers and Mash and a new song, ‘Supercollider’, that Yorke performed solo on piano, still rough around the edges though.
I guess my main disappointment was with the performance of the ‘In Rainbows’ tracks. They played it all except for ‘House of Cards’, including a nice little acoustic duet of ‘Faust Arp’. All these songs were performed exactly like they are on the album, with very little passion in the performances. There was some nice moments like ‘Videotape’ and ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’, but overall it felt a bit dull for a live performance.
The light show was amazing. As you can see from the pictures, there was strips of lights the height of the stage at the sides and back and about 10 foot above the stage in the middle. The colours and effects the came out of these was incredible, although it would have been nicer if it was darker but I’m not going to complain about the great weather and long evenings. The screens at the back and sides had mainly close up shots of the band and their instruments, a real nice touch for the musos. It also worked with the strips of lighting, creating a stunning visual experience.
All in all it was a good, enjoyable gig, and a great day out, would do it all again tomorrow if I could. Just a shame there was too many negatives. Also, surprising that the additional night (which was actually the Friday night) wasn’t sold out. The Saturday sold out within an hour or so but tickets for Friday were still available…
Heh! I normally find that you are accused of being a music snob for sticking up for small alt acts like Bat For Lashes, not commercial juggernauts like Radiohead!
To be fair to the lass, she’s an indoors kinda girl. You could hardly hear anything that they were playing other than vocals, drums, and synth on Saturday! Would not judge her at all on this performance.
The instument in question is a Stroh violin!
A Hawk & A Hacksaw also use one!
Re Radiohead, I had been looking at the recent US set lists beforehand, so I guess that I was less surprised than many as to what songs that they would play.
I find their last three albums to be a bit like fine wines – the older they get, the more I appreciate them! As a result, I liked hearing them played!