Outside Lands: Radiohead is Silent and Deadly

Photo: Chris Tuite

There were supposed to be two note-worthy reasons to see Radiohead’s slot as the opening night closers for Outside Lands; instead there were three. The two intended reasons? This is the last in a string of well-received festival appearances that the Oxford chaps would be playing on North American shores, and -- specific to San Francisco -- this is the first time that any band would be playing in Golden Gate Park after dark.

Well, make headlines they would, but not for those reasons. Instead, two notable, groan inducing sound cuts during the early part of their set (during “Airbag” and “All I Need” respectively) were what people would be talking about the morning after. The first time it happened, Thom Yorke was affable, even amused, by the situation, asking, “Who stepped on the plug?” But the second time, he spat something under his breath before launching into “Nude.” During the pauses, when the band could be seen in close-up but not heard on the giant, CCTV-style split screens that have been the norm this tour, it was hard not to pose philosophical questions like, “If Radiohead plays their last North American festival in a park after dark and no one can hear it, do they ever come back?” That is, if you weren’t loudly asking (like one audience member) “Why don’t they do something?”

After a gaffe like that, it’s hard to get back into the swing of things, especially when you’re picturing the fallout for the production company or the festival itself. Still, the band charged through beneath LED light rods that created waterfalls, bursts and pulses of color to elevate the mood of songs like “There There,” “Talk Show Host,” and “The Gloaming,” for which the throbbing neon green lights lent a nuclear air. And it’s too bad that the distracting sound cut likely turned the crowd’s attention away from songs like Kid A’s “Idioteque,” which here got its electric guts pulled out and exposed with a slight, but brilliant, tweak to its instrumentation by Johnny Greenwood.

Exiting the park, the talk was all about tomorrow—who would be held responsible for “stepping on the plug.” But even Thom Yorke must have remembered at some point that he and his band had just made San Francisco history. –KAITLIN FONTANA