Few bands in or out of rock exceed the sum of their parts as often – or as brilliantly – as Radiohead, whose sold-out Wednesday night concert at Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre reaffirmed the band's collective power.
Apart from lead guitarist and keyboardist Jonny Greenwood, a classically trained musician and budding film composer, no one in Radiohead qualifies as a virtuoso.
Lead singer Thom Yorke doesn't have an especially broad range, apart from his ethereal falsetto, nor does he engage in the empty histrionics that too many rock vocalists these days sadly mistake for emotional depth. Likewise, second guitarist Ed O'Brien, bassist Colin Greenwood and drummer Phil Selway are all solid players who seem incapable of showing off and probably wouldn't stand out in any band.
But put these five English music mavericks together on stage, or in a recording studio, and magic happens. Together, they achieve a sonic symbiosis – if not outright musical alchemy – that enables them to soar repeatedly.
That's precisely what Radiohead did at its Chula Vista concert Wednesday, which drew 19,692 fans to cheer on art-rock's most popular band since Pink Floyd.
Yorke and his colleagues performed 17 selections, followed by a first encore of four songs that included the two oldest pieces of the concert, “Just” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” from the band's second album, 1995's “The Bends.” The fact that an especially charged “Paranoid Android” was spontaneously sequenced in between helped heighten their impact.
JOHN R. McCUTCHEN / Union-Tribune
Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood solos during the band's performance Wednesday night.
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The second batch of encores culminated with a transcendent version of “Everything in Its Right Place” from Radiohead's shape-shifting 2000 opus, “Kid A.” In this case, the band transcended the song
and its fans, since many were still listening to an electronic loop of “Everything” that played even as Radiohead's members swiftly rode off on a pair of tour buses.
The concert began with “15 Step,” the herky-jerky opening track from “In Rainbows,” the 2007 album for which Radiohead let its fans pay as much, or as little, as they wished. The album was also for sale at Wednesday's concert, but for the non-negotiable price of $10 per copy, still a bargain.
Coincidentally, “15 Step” is also the song the band chose to open the first of its two sold-out shows here at the Embarcadero in 2006. Like Wednesday's next number, 1997's “Airbag,” it suffered from a muddled sound mix that seemed to throw the musicians off balance.
Things began to clear up with the next tune, “There There,” which found Greenwood gleefully pounding on his guitar as his bandmates kicked into high gear behind him. From then on, the performance was almost uniformly riveting, even in the few cases when the group faltered (as it did at the start of “Talk Show Host,” which built to an ear-bending psychedelic jam that climaxed with pinpoint precision).
Apart from the instances in which he briefly thanked the audience for its applause, Yorke let his band's intensely atmospheric music do the talking (although he broke into uncharacteristic laughter after singing the first few words of “You and Whose Army?”). Other highlights included the stirring “House of Cards,” the combustible, near-orchestral “Bodysnatchers,” and the finely calibrated “Optimism,” one of several songs that sounded both brainy and brawny, a Radiohead specialty.
The dark themes of Angst and alienation that permeate many of Yorke's lyrics somehow take on a celebratory air when performed for nearly 20,000 enthusiastic fans. Even the gloomiest songs shine brightly in such a setting, and while Wednesday's concert revealed little about where Radiohead may go in the future, it spoke volumes about the visceral power of first-rate musical teamwork.
George Varga: (619) 293-2253; george.varga@uniontrib.com
