Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Fatalist wrote:

[Radiohead – Live at Glastonbury on your telly. They’re just bloody good, aren’t they? Rolled out all the ‘hits’ at the end (most of which didn’t bother the top 20 at the time, now received like sacred texts), but I love the fact they started the set so quietly. ’15 Steps’ was particularly good.]


They ARE bloody good. As they proved in abundance last Friday, they can enwrap and enthral a city's worth of people not with hollow, rack & roll posturing but with the sheer quality of their music and their music making. I don't think there's ever been a more unlikely rock frontman than Thom Yorke, and yet his modest stage presence makes him far more shamanic and mesmerising than any number of his more animated imitators. His art - and that of the whole band - speaks for itself.

Their set list was masterful: enough of the "hits" to keep the casuals happy, but interspersed with loads of less obvious tracks from their entire catalogue. Yeah, starting off quietly with 'Daydreaming' was genius: but then following that with one of the slowest songs from their biggest album was even better. And 'Lotus Flower' as an encore? Cor. This was far from the obvious and crowd pleasing set that Saturday's lauded headliners (who I quite like, by the way) delivered, but to my jaded ears it was infinitely more powerful.

And only two songs from their latest album, yet four from 'In Rainbows'? Well, I'm not complaining. In fact, I agree with Mark Radcliffe that 'Nude' was probably the set's peak - but my, it had some competition there.

Was it just me, or were the "hits" played ever so slightly slower than on record? Maybe that's how they managed to sound so intense. I wasn't there - I only watched it from my armchair, with a bowlful of tudor and half a bottle of Shetland Reel, but shit man...they had me prisoner. I went to bed about 1 AM and didn't drift off for hours, so wired had the sounds of those five blokes made me.

Yes, they are indeed bloody good.