Thom Yorke in Concert is not Radiohead, and it Still Rules

Saturday night I saw one of the most interesting and entertaining live shows I've ever witnessed. Me, my buddy and 2 of my brothers saw Thom Yorke on his Modern Boxes tour.

It was incredible. I even liked the opener, which is out of the norm for me. The guy who opened, I unfortunately do not remember his name, was a very solid cellist. He played his cello really well, and he did some interesting things with it. The way he used the amplifier and pedal board he had was pretty cool. He played some rock songs, some classical stuff and did quite a bit of looping. It was cool. I found myself nearly entranced by his performance. Even when he started to play some recordings of children and people talking, and then proceeded to play cello over it, I found it very neat. I liked this guy. Then it was Thom Yorke's turn.

Going into this show I did not know what to expect. Yes, I had previously listened to the record he put out prior to this tour, and I have listened to his other solo stuff, but I had never seen him solo. I have seen Radiohead on multiple occasions, but they played Radiohead songs. I knew what I was going to see when I went to those shows. I was prepared to be surprised, in a good way, by this show though. I am a Radiohead fan. I, as I have said, listened to all of his solo stuff, so I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy it. In listening to his Modern Boxes stuff I did expect a layer of electronic music. Yorke seems to be leaning towards that style with his solo stuff, in a good way. I'm not a huge electronic music fan, unless it is done right. Yorke does it right.

So, when he came on stage, I was very, very excited. He and his 2 other musicians got right into it. Yorke said hi, and they immediately jumped into their set. Yorke moves and dances and sings and does his thing on stage no matter what. Another one of his band mates was playing all different kinds of instruments and he was as in to the set as Yorke seemed. Then there was the third guy. He stood in one spot the whole time and was seemingly typing on a keyboard. I'm sure he had something to do with the entire show, but he didn't move at all, until the end when he waved to the crowd.

That being said, I really, really liked what I heard from Yorke and his band. They played some wild, jumpy, bouncy and overall cool music. It was all very, very different from what I expected. But, I loved it. Even when he did some of his older solo stuff, like "Black Swan", it was a totally different arrangement from his first recording of the song. And I loved it. His new original stuff is also very, very good. It is the upper echelon of electronic music. Yorke is a total pro, and it showed on Saturday night. I like some electronic bands, like Ratatat, but Yorke is so, so much better than the stuff they do. The songs were unique and different and fun and I even felt a bit if a hip hop vibe here and there. It was so cool.

Also, the show going on behind the band, on the 4 separate screens they had, was one of the coolest things I have seen in my lifetime. It was all shapes that would change into other shapes. He also had this cool screen that was totally white, then a black ink drawings started to fill in all the white space. It then turned into a full on crazy color palette. I'm also not big into strobe light type stuff, but I found myself completely engaged and enraptured by what was going on behind the band. It was so cool. There were times I could not take my eyes off what was going on on those 4 screens.

Finally, the double encore was great. Yorke and his band came back out after about an 80 minute set and played three more songs for the first encore. Yorke did a solo version of "Reckoner", and it was so cool to hear it in a totally different way. A song that is so drum heavy was played brilliantly, minus the drums, by Yorke and his computer and mixing board. When he came back for the second encore, he played one song, and it was the most normal one of the show, but it was a perfect ending. He played one of his new songs from the movie "Suspiria", for which he wrote and arranged all the music. It was a pretty, beautiful and scary song that Yorke, even while messing up at one point, even saying "whoops", played excellently.

This show was amazing. I am so, so glad that I got to see it live. I'm so glad that I got to experience with some very important people to me. This was a great night. It was a night I won't soon forget. This show was amazing, and it was one of the better shows I've ever been to. What a night. A special thanks to my wife who bought the tickets as an early birthday gift. She really knocked it out of the park. 

If you are a Radiohead fan, go see this show. You will love it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He does not care for electronica, unless it is good. Let that be a lesson, if your genre of music is not widely accepted, make it good.

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