Venue:
Parc Jean-Drapeau, Montreal
Date: 31/07/2016
Radiohead closed the 3 day Osheaga festival with a marathon 2hr 15 set in front of a sold out crowd of 45,000. Opening with a selection from excellent new album A Moon Shaped Pool, skilfully replacing the lavish orchestrations with keyboards and guitars, they then moved through relative obscurities before breaking out “the hits” in the last hour of the show. Spectacular lighting, sensational sound and a band showing complete mastery of their art compensated for the somewhat cramped and uncomfortable festival conditions on a very warm night.
Was my first Radiohead show in 10 years and most of the early material was from that interim period, Burn the Witch was pounding and ominous, Nude simply beautiful and Bloom was a WTF complete freakout under green strobing lights. Loved The Numbers, possibly my favourite from the new album. Main set closed with an awesome There There and the encore mainly concentrated on OK Computer and, yes, they closed with Creep.
All albums were represented with the exception of The Bends which is one of the greatest albums ever made.
The audience:
Young, stoned, drunk, exuberant and passionate, They knew nearly every word and at times it was impossible to hear Thom’s vocals. In Karma Police he may not have sung at all, all that was heard was the crowd.
It made me think..
Live rock music doesn’t get any better than this.
Setlist:
Burn the Witch
Daydreaming
Ful Stop
2 + 2 = 5
Bodysnatchers
Nude
Reckoner
Pyramid Song
Bloom
Identikit
The Numbers
The Gloaming
Feral
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Everything In Its Right Place
Idioteque
There There
First encore:
Let Down
Present Tense
Paranoid Android
Exit Music (For A Film)
Karma Police
Second encore:
Lotus Flower
Creep
Exit music
That is a stunning setlist
Fantastic review, captures the atmosphere brilliantly.
I’ve recently promoted A Moon Shaped Pool to second best Radiohead album ever!
Thanks mate. It is growing on me and came across wonderfully last night. Time will tell if it will break into my fairly traditional top 3 of The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A.
Probably my top 3 too dai but In Rainbows and Kid A alternate positions depending on the month.
The Welsh have taste 😉
Blimey really? Above Pablo Honey?
Seriously though I’m still struggling with AMSP. I’m one of those weird people who currently still prefer King Of Limbs but I’m going to persist and I’m pretty sure, if experience tells me anything, that it will reveal itself to me.
Yes great review – that first paragraph so dense with info.
Never got the band but it is the one I wish I did get.
Thanks. Go see them live! (If they get down there)
They have only ever toured here one , I think.
If they toured again I’d have a go at getting some tickets.
*sighs*
Are they any good then? (Not a spiky spiteful, but I have somehow always filed them under the charmless sobbing of privileged brats. I know only Creep, mainly by it’s myriad cover versions, and the track on the first Warchild compilation. ) The reviews of the latest LP have niggled my conscience into thinking about allowing them in my life.
Sell me ’em, Radioheads!!
They’re great. I mean proper great. I’ve heard them labelled this generation’s Pink Floyd which is desperately unfair on Radiohead (in my humble opinion :))
The Bends is a long time ago now but I’d start with that as a perfect representation of their early form. Then listen to In Rainbows which I’d say is the best of the work they’ve done in the last 10 years.
You won’t regret it. If you have ears.
Top setlist but nowt from The Bends? They’ve got a great back catalogue admittedly but sheesh…..
They have have played some tracks from that album on other dates (My Iron Lung, Street Spirit and Planet Telex), but sadly nothing in Montreal. We did get a lot of OK Computer and it was all so great that I can’t say it made for a worse show, however with those 3 tracks (and Fake Plastic trees) replacing some or all of the King of Limbs stuff we may well have ended up with perfection.