Shock, horror, amazement and astonishment. The blandest band in the world, Radiohead, actually played their biggest hit, Creep on Sunday night. Just saw the report on NME and I was almost bowled over with laughter. What sort of band headlines any huge show like that and ‘surprises’ the audience by playing the song everyone but the hardcore fanatics wants to hear. Like Metallica not playing Enter Sandman or Journey not playing Don’t Stop Believing.
This isn’t really a surprise though, Radiohead are a major part of the ever growing new breed of obnoxious bands that are dominating today’s musical landscape. If they’re not irritating pop/rock hairdressers, then they’re Radiohead wannabe’s or even worse, they’re Coldplay. I don’t understand how bands can be so arrogant and pompous to play shows of this size and act like they’re doing their fans a favor by playing a song like this. What’s worse is people put up with it. Why don’t you spend your money and time on bands who are grateful for your dedication and do exactly what you want on stage. I hear lots of Radiohead fans complaining about their newer albums and only the odd fanatic defending them as genius but the band still insist on filling up their set lists with a host of tracks from these records, rather than playing the music the people want to hear.
KISS are starting their world tour this month and you can damn well bet they won’t fill their set up with B-Side Eighties releases and new material. They play what the fans want them to play. Hell, they even let the fans map the tour for them. That’s what you want from a bands live show. Not two hours of ego fulfilling, time wasting nonsense.
What’s that you say, they even brought blue lights and cylinders on stage with them?? Wow, what excitement for those of you who were lucky enough to be there. How could you focus on the two hours of mediocre whining from a man so stuck up his own arse even Bono would have trouble competing when there was all that amazing technical wizardry going on around them…..sarcasm for those of you who didn’t get it. I’m all for letting the music do the talking, heck that’s my argument for Axl Roses current activities and the Chinese Democracy problems but if a band headlines a festival like this, wouldn’t it be nice if they did something special on stage and give people a truly epic show to remember. Not two f**king hours of tired old beer commercial references, cylinders, little snips of technical difficulties and the highlight of highlights, playing a song the whole crowd would know.
When Nirvana headlined |Reading in 1992, they opened with a play on the rumor of Kurt’s ill-health, shocking the audience before Kurt leaped from a wheelchair and burst into Breed. They followed with a 27 song set that included all their hits,. Remember, this was a band with two albums. Radiohead have seven albums and only managed 23 tracks which barley scraped the surface of their hits and had no frills.
Wake up folks and try to understand what a real band does and what posers, fakes and pricks like ‘the head’ do and see which you’d enjoy better.
'Ticket's There' - Irish and International Music Blog 