Friday, June 24th 2011
News: Glastonbury
Watch Radiohead, U2 & Primal Scream at Glastonbury
Out of all the major festivals that take place every year, Glastonbury seems to be the one that gets the most attention from the worldwide press. Taking place in Somerset, UK, each year of the festival has a wide selection of great artists on the lineup, and generates at least a few newsworthy sets – with accompanying videos for our enjoyment.
Radiohead were expected to debut the live versions of songs from The King of Limbs via their latest From The Basement episode, but the band pulled a fast one on us. As Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood did last year, the full band were at Glastonbury’s Park Stage for a surprise show, performing several songs from their latest album.
Unfortunately, as Spinner reports, the crowd’s reaction to the new songs was chilly. Opening with Lotus Flower, the band played all but two tracks from The King of Limbs, along with new cuts Daily Mail and Staircase, which all had a very lukewarm reception; three songs from In Rainbows and the somewhat-obscure I Might Be Wrong closed the main set. Thanks in no part to the rain afflicting the crowd at the moment, it’s not much of a surprise that a concert with absolutely none of the band’s “hits” was poorly received. Playing Street Spirit (Fade Away), arguably their most depressing tune to date, as the encore, didn’t help either.
Here are some videos from the performance:
Daily Mail
(The piece will be updated as more videos with King of Limbs songs are made available).
Unlike Radiohead, Pyramid Stage headliners U2 filled their set with their most well-known songs. Originally, they were scheduled to headline last year’s festival, but had to cancel due to a health issue with lead singer Bono. The band played their first festival gig in over 20 years, to a very welcoming crowd, opening with a powerful sequence of tracks from Achtung Baby, with The Fly reprising the classic screen visuals from their 1993 Zoo TV Tour:
Even Better Than The Real Thing / The Fly
Mysterious Ways / Until The End of the World
Also of notice was Primal Scream‘s set, as the band performed their classic album Screamadelica in its entirety at the Other Stage. Check out a couple of great videos from the show below:
Movin’ on Up
Loaded
Photo: Joel Ryan
Kudos to Radiohead for playing what they want to play and not feeling restricted to “the hits”. If you want to see a band play “the hits”, go see a band that has no meaningful new output, i.e. Tool.
Exactly how I feel about the criticism. At this stage the band shouldn’t be seen as a jukebox to peddle out singalongs, and you’d think most people willing to see them in concert would be prepared as such. Maybe my hearing’s blown but I’m pretty sure The Daily Mail ended with decent applause too, so I’m not really sure what the problem is – probably just a result of comparing their act to U2′s theatrics, which doesn’t seem fair at all.
Intimate music doesn’t need cheers to prove it was recognized and felt by the crowd; I’d like to think its what you walk away with that counts rather than the immediate hit anyway
I love Radiohead, but the new album is weak. They have gotten better and better over the years, but they’ve hit the wall with this one. I’m not surprised that the songs don’t translate well live. I’ll pretend In Rainbows 1 and 2 are their most recent albums until they surpass the mediocrity of TKOL.
Shit, Primal Scream, what an amazing band. “Screamadelica” is a classic
I don’t know, that daily mail song seemed to be pretty awesome.
Another thing: if you honestly believe Street Spirit is that “depressing” you probably shouldn’t be listening to Radiohead. It’s a perfect send-off song and most people find the chorus quite uplifting
In this clip you can hear the crowd chanting along pretty clearly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TpnLHudp8E so excuse me when I say fuck Spinner
Well, that’s one perspective. Here’s another. Let’s see what reeks most of ignorance.
Thom Yorke said:
“’I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. ‘Street Spirit’ has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It’s called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn’t play it. I’d crack. I’d break down on stage. That’s why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That’s what’s meant by ‘all these things you’ll one day swallow whole’. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn’t have it in me to articulate the emotion. I’d crack…
Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don’t realise what they’re listening to. They don’t realise that ‘Street Spirit’ is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh. And it’s real, and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I’d crack.
I can’t believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That’s why I’m convinced that they don’t know what it’s about. It’s why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you’re going to have your dog put down and it’s wagging its tail on the way there. That’s what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn’t picked us as its catalysts, and so I don’t claim it. It asks too much. I didn’t write that song.”
Are we really attaching ignorance to this? An audible roar comes out at the end of the video I posted dude… My only gripe here is that they’re getting talked down for trying something new, which doesn’t seem in good spirit at all.
“They don’t realise that ‘Street Spirit’ is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh. And it’s real, and true” – isn’t it possible that this is why they’re chanting? It’s triumphant for the very reason you’re arguing, a chance to shout back at the ‘devil’ and embrace the negative with something more powerful. Besides, isn’t ignorance supposed to be bliss?
You are a very confrontational man, Mr. Firecloud, though I do appreciate the homework/quote. All I offered was a take on the critical response, and some evidence to support it. Sorry if I stepped on anyone’s shoes in the process. All I can say is that, from the footage I’ve seen, their performance was pretty fucking beautiful and relatively well-received by those who cared enough to receive it
There’s no need for apologies. I wouldn’t call it “very confrontational” so much as a very short tolerance on my own site for condescending know-it-alls who don’t actually know it all.
“if you honestly believe Street Spirit is that “depressing” you probably shouldn’t be listening to Radiohead.”
I think you understand.
Furthermore, Street Spirit isn’t a new song. The discussed reaction was to the new songs, so a clip of anyone singing along to this beloved old gem isn’t going to help any arguments.
In that case, here’s a clip of Bloom that’s far and above the album version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCifQxW2t14&feature=player_embed
By that comment all I meant was that the writer may not have approached this one with as much objectivity as possible, and for this I don’t blame him – if it were me I’d probably have devoted more to attention to Radiohead’s set than Primal Scream’s for example while I love both bands.
Sometimes it’s difficult to communicate in instant messages constructive criticism, though I stand by what I said about Street Spirit
I agree that the crowd responded well to Street Spirit – whether because it was the only pre-In Rainbows song of the show, or because it’s easy to sing along to. But I still find it very depressing.
Obviously, we don’t have enough evidence to see how the crowd acted throughout the ENTIRE show, so Spinner’s info should be taken with a grain of salt.
Those Spinner cats are on point. I’ll give ‘em the benefit of the doubt till I see otherwise.
I was there and it was amazing – street spirit was especially incredible and the crowd sung every word! I didn’t feel any negativity at the show, it was a chilled out (albeit wet) set but everyone around us absolutely loved it! I think that as the set was unannounced there was little expectation and they could play whatever they liked which is exactly what they did! People expecting a set of hits really haven’t followed Radiohead for the last decade.