Radiohead is a rare bird around these parts: It doesn’t focus itstime in North America, and unlike most bands, isn’t concerned with keeping up appearances in major cities when it does visit. Combine that with the band’s historically , which favors closely clustered-yet-viable cities like those along the California coast, and you get two Colorado Radiohead shows in the last 14 years.
Earlier thisyear, theband announceda short, nine-city U.S. tour around its latest album, the gorgeous “A Moon Shaped Pool.” Sure enough, there was no Denver date in sight. Instead, theband hitKansas City, jumping over Colorado in favor ofSeattle and another run down the California coastline.
Is all hope lost for a show in Colorado this year? Arguably, no. The band could still announce a show here — maybe atBroomfield’s FirstBank Center, the last venue it played here back in 2012, or Red Rocks, which it hit twice in two years (!) at the turn of the 21st century. Plus, nineAmerican cities for an entire album cycle is a crazy small tour, even for Radiohead’s standards, and the band is only , and intermittently at that.
After catching the band’s show atSeattle’s Key Arena on Saturday, my nerve grew:Denverdoesn’t just need this show; it deserves one. Below, a few reasons why.
Thom Yorke is happy again
“A Moon Shaped Pool” was a beautiful bummer — , ostensibly — but somewhere between the album’s release and Saturday, Thom turned that crescent moon-shaped frown upside down. Between songs like “Daydreaming,” the night’s opener, and “Present Tense,” he was game for the weekend, cracking smiles at the photo pit and subbing out coherent stage banterfor general goof ass-ery. Yorkebusted outhis best valley girl impression, laughed along with the crowd and pushed the show to almost two-and-a-half hours for a triple-encore that saw him bust out true classics like “No Surprises” and a set-ending “Fake Plastic Trees.”
That kind of can-do attitude is way more Denver than it is Seattle, what with all itsclouds and moody baristas and. We get you, Thom, and we want to drink every imaginable variety of beer in a pint glasswith you inour terrible English accents. Just let it happen.
They’re Phish for the rest of us
Colorado is heaven for jam band fans. But what if you don’t like Phish and never will? Radiohead can help you walk a mile in thoseBirkenstocks. The bandrelishes in switching up itsset lists from show to show, sourcing from a deep well of songs, many of which are only known to thoseluckyenough to catch them live or hardcore enough toscour the internet for crumbs of obscure tracksthat
That’s notto mention the fact that Phish heads aren’t all that dissimilar from Radiohead, uh, heads. They noticewhen the band trots out songsthat dance to quirky time signatures, and judging by the healthy amount of weed candy that was flying around me and the thick plumes of dankfog that sprungup in suspicious confluence with the night’s most awe-inspiring songs (“Ful Stop,” “Subterranean Homesick Alien” et al.), they enjoy the odd jazz cigarette just as much.
Johnny Greenwood got thatguitarwe stole from him back
Not that hefavored his six string on Saturday. He slung a bow across one for “Pyramid Song,” but the multi-instrumentalist spentmost of his time tickling ivories, banging on a snare drum and coaxing electronic gurgles out of a synthesizer. (, Johnny.)
live, mate
This one isn’t Colorado specific so much as its human specific. Few songsstillthe head and heart like this one.
It’s especially resonant live, with Yorke’s sonorousmewl hitting thousands of others at the same time, twistingtheir emotionsin the confused way that avideo of an adorable piglet hungrily scarfing downa pork hotdog might.
The band hasn’t played Red Rocks since “Reckoner” came out in 2007, and knowing that song could technically happen at that venue is enough to make us want to ask Radiohead’s management if they’re absolutely sure the band doesn’t have another show up its sleeve in the state this year.
We did; they didn’t email back. No response isn’t thebest response, but we can read between the lines:
