Niko Stratis - The Dad Rock That Made Me a Woman (2025)

With a title like this, how was I gonna not read it? I could read books by trans women about rock music until I die. Alas, this is the only one I know of.

So, naturally, what is dad rock? My first thought was the music my dad, or my partner’s dad, or any stereotypical, white, cishet, US-American father would listen to. Stratis admits to initially leaning the same way, but ultimately subverts expectations and goes based on vibes, specifically honing in on what she describes on her blog as “someone taking what they have learned, through time and skill and failure, doing their best to impart that knowledge as an act of communal guidance.” In that way, dad rock is whatever she wants it to be, and it transcends gender and age. It is perhaps no coincidence that my dad likes most of the bands cited in the book, or he probably would if he listened to them. Incidentally, they’re pretty much all white and cis. Then again, my own list of trans inspiration tunes is also very white and cis.

At any rate, it’s no surprise to find chapters on Wilco, R.E.M., or Fleetwood Mac, but the real treasures are the deeper cuts, like The Mountain Goats, Neko Case, and Sharon Van Etten (even if she mistitled “We Are Fine” as “It’s Alright”). I have to admit, I was especially surprised by Haim, Julien Baker, and Waxahatchee, all of whom are younger than Stratis (and, except for Este Haim, me). But viewed through the lens of artists that want to share the wisdom they’ve learned through experience, it all makes sense. There is a great mix of artists I already knew and loved, artists I sorta knew and now know better, and a few that were new to me. Because of the variety of subgenres and generations, that will probably be true for anyone interested enough to read it. She finally sold me on The Mountain Goats, she reminded me that The National did have a couple solid albums once upon a time, and she reaffirmed my love of “Fake Plastic Trees”.

I love the way Stratis combines stories from her life with stories about the bands and their songs, even if her personal connections to the music generally have more to do with alcoholism, loneliness, depression, and economic struggle than with explicit queerness, transition, or femininity. But that’s part of the beauty of it: Stratis becoming who she is today is a summation of all these things, and of course no trans person’s journey follows the same path. Surviving bullying, isolation, gruelling labor, and grief is how she became who she is now, and music is an ideal vehicle to carry her through it all. It’s a pleasure to hear her interpret these songs through the lens of the struggles she went through and share the wisdom she’s gained from them. And I like that she stuck to the bit and assigned a song even for the final chapter, which was mostly just acknowledgements!

Score: A-

Radiohead - Live 2025.12.09 Uber Arena, Berlin, Germany

This was night two of a four-show series at a cursed venue. Since the first two nights last week in Copenhagen were canceled due to Yorke’s throat infection, I was a bit concerned how this would play out. It’s also their first tour in seven years, and there’s been no indication of new recordings. With plenty of solo and side projects, it hasn’t been clear that Radiohead would ever be a functional unit again. Sometimes you have to take the opportunities when you get them.

The band performed on a circular stage in the middle of the pit, initially surrounded by projection screens. After two songs, the screens lifted above the stage to reveal the band, accompanied by an additional percussionist, Chris Vatalaro. I almost couldn’t tell that nine years had passed since the last time I saw them, and the setlist was fairly similar. In fact, they played the same set as two shows prior in Copenhagen, merely substituting “How to Disappear Completely” in place of “Like Spinning Plates”. They’ve made a pattern of alternating between two sets with minor variations as they go along. (Naturally, someone has made a spreadsheet.)

It’s hard to judge whether I got the better or worse variant. “Nude”, “Pyramid Song”, and “Exit Music” were great, even if Colin’s fuzz bass could’ve been more present on the lattermost, but I got the weaker Bends songs. (I would’ve loved “Planet Telex” or “Just”!) If I have a real complaint, it’s just that there was a certain predictability to the song selection. I suppose asking for b-sides or unreleased songs like I got in 2012 would be too much to ask, but, like, why’d they take “Subterranean Homesick Blues”, “Climbing Up the Walls”, and “Nice Dream” out of rotation? What about any of the songs unearthed for the OK Computer or Kid A Mnesia reissues? They didn’t even really play any songs with room for chance or improvisation, like “Everything in Its Right Place”. I was hoping for some curveballs, a little more risk.

That said, they have so many great songs that they can play two sets full of bangers and safely ignore the obscurities. I finally got to see “Let Down”, albeit in a tamer arrangement that somehow lacked some of its usual uplifting energy. “Airbag”, “You and Whose Army?”, and “No Surprises” are always welcome. “Sit Down. Stand Up.”, “Optimistic”, and “How to Disappear Completely” were slightly less obvious choices that I enjoyed, although Jonny screwing up the drum machine threw the first for a loop. “There There” was a strong closing number.

But the mix, at least where I was sitting, was surprisingly bad. The bass was terribly boomy, which turned the mids into mush. The higher-powered, heavier songs like “Ful Stop”, “The Bends”, and “Bodysnatchers” were a mess, and the vocals were rendered inaudible for those. For the quieter songs, the balance was better, and those songs tended to work better. Yorke’s voice was in great form despite the recent cancellations, and I always love Ed’s (and Phil’s!) backing vocals. I was hoping for more analog synth, but Jonny just used it to control a drum machine. Regardless, it’s still cool to watch him run between so many different instruments, particularly the lovely ondes Martenot.

My other complaint was even more situational: I was happy to have a seat, but my section unusually stayed seated for the most part, and for once I really wanted to dance. My position in the venue was such that I mostly just saw Colin’s back as he locked his gaze with the drummers, which also threw me out of the experience a bit. At least Thom came around to the back for some of the acoustic numbers.

Despite the distractions, I was still captivated and sang along with just about every song. The band kept up a brisk pace, blasting through 25 songs with hardly a pause. They hardly spoke to the crowd, but then again, they rarely do say much. Their songs tend to speak for themselves. It struck me during the show just how bitingly critical and politically powerful so many of their songs are. While one can criticize the finer points of the individual members’ politics, how could anyone doubt which side they stand on? Song after song harkened back to past outrages while presciently describing those of the present day.

Maybe I came into the show with too high of expectations. The first two times I saw them in St. Louis were some of the best concerts I’ve seen, and it’s hard to match that. The circumstances did not align to give me another transcendent experience. I wish I’d been able to see and hear the band in more ideal conditions, and I wish I could’ve moved my body more freely. Oh well. I still had a blast.

Here’s the setlist:
01. 2 + 2 = 5
02. Airbag
03. Jigsaw Falling into Place
04. All I Need
05. Ful Stop
06. Nude
07. Reckoner
08. The Bends
09. Separator
10. Pyramid Song
11. You and Whose Army?
12. Sit Down. Stand Up.
13. Myxomatosis
14. No Surprises
15. Optimistic
16. Bodysnatchers
17. Exit Music (for a Film)
18. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Encore:
19. Let Down
20. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
21. Idioteque
22. Present Tense
23. How to Disappear Completely
24. Paranoid Android
25. There There

Score: B

P.S. Thanks to Mirah!

P.P.S. Kraftwerk played at the Music Hall next door on the same night!

2019 in Review

I’ve never written a post like this before, but 2019 was something of a special year. Somehow, without even really trying, I wrote more reviews in 2019 than in any prior (37 posts). At present, there are 33 posts tagged 2019 (not counting this one), also more than any other year. It’s also the first year I saw a show and wrote a review in every month. I still haven’t gone to any major European festivals, but I did go to a local psychedelic festival that seems to be breaking out (Synästhesie), another local alternative/independent festival (Torstraßen Festival), and a street festival on the street I live on (Choriner Straßenfest). And in another first, I conducted my first interview (with Joshua King of Joshua and the Ruins). It’s been a busy year!

I managed to see three of the classic kosmische heroes (Hans-Joachim Roedelius of Cluster and Harmonia, Michael Rother of Neu! and Harmonia, and Tangerine Dream, albeit with none of the original members), in addition to plenty of my other longtime favorites (The Specials, Ian Fisher, ChameleonsVox, The Smashing Pumpkins, Andrew Bird, Neil Young, Boogarins, Tame Impala, Wilco, Fehlfarben, Stereolab, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark).

I also got to see several strong newer German bands (Britta (new is relative), Barbara Morgenstern, Die Heiterkeit, Theodor Shitstorm, Laura Carbone, and Perilymph, among plenty others), and there were also plenty of pleasant surprises at festivals and in opening slots (Yeasayer (who just broke up), Michaela Meise, The Chap, Chris Imler, and Sunn Trio, to name a few).

There was also plenty of great music released in 2019. Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order:

• Andrew Bird - My Finest Work Yet
• Boogarins - Sombrou Dúvida
• Deerhunter - Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?
• Golden Dawn Arkestra - Darkness Falls on the Edge of Time
• Die Heiterkeit - Was passiert ist
• Ian Fisher - Cherry Garden
• David J - Missive to an Angel from the Halls of Infamy and Allure
• Joshua and the Ruins - The Dreaming Season
• Radiohead - MiniDiscs [Hacked] (yeah I went there)
• Ride - This Is Not a Safe Place
• Slowness - Berths

You may note a few big names with new albums aren’t on the list. To be honest, I found some of the high-profile releases by big-name artists middling or even disappointing, namely Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Ghosteen, The National - I Am Easy to Find, Wilco - Ode to Joy, and Thom Yorke - Anima.

On the other hand, there were (as always) a few older records that I came across this year that particularly impressed me, including: Britta - Lichtjahre voraus (2003), The Boo Radleys - Everything’s Alright Forever (1992) and Giant Steps (1993), Michael Rother - Flammende Herzen (1977), Neonbabies - 1983 (1983), and Ideal - Bi Nuu (1982).

Lastly, there were also a number of great records from recent years that I missed at first but have now caught up with, such as: The Besnard Lakes - A Coliseum Complex Museum (2016), Theodor Shitstorm - Sie werden dich lieben (2018), and The Veldt’s pair of 2017 EPs, The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation and Thanks to the Moth and Areanna Rose, although most of the latter appears to have been previously released as Apollo Heights on White Music for Black People (2007).

Like I said, it was a great year for me in terms of music! Here’s hoping that the fun continues in 2020.

Thom Yorke / Oliver Coates - Live 2018.06.01 Tempodrom, Berlin, Germany

Having been a long-time fan of Radiohead, it might go without saying that I have also tracked Thom Yorke's solo career. Although his various side projects have never quite matched his work with Radiohead, he has always been an interesting figure to follow.

Artist: Thom Yorke

Venue: Tempodrom

Location: Berlin, Germany

Date: 1 June 2018

Opening Act: Oliver Coates

Setlist:
01. Interference

02. A Brain in a Bottle

03. Impossible Knots

04. Black Swan

05. I Am a Very Rude Person

06. The Clock

07. Two Feet Off the Ground

08. Amok [Atoms for Peace song]

09. Not the News

10. Truth Ray

11. Traffic

12. Twist → Saturdays

13. Pink Section

14. Nose Grows Some

15. Cymbal Rush

First Encore:

16. The Axe

17. Atoms for Peace

18. Default [Atoms for Peace song]

Second Encore:

19. Spectre [Radiohead song]

Oliver Coates is the principal cello with the London Contemporary Orchestra and thus performed a key role on Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool (2016). He opened his solo set with a beautiful traditional piece apparently specifically requested by Thom Yorke. Thereafter, however, he stuck to his own material, which can, in various forms, be described as cello with electronic beats, cello with sorrowful synth, and cello with guitar effects. The latter was the most successful: in the best moments, Coates worked with tones reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine. The downbeat synth tracks were respectable, but perhaps too subdued and restrained. The beats did nothing for me.

Thom Yorke came out with his regular collaborator Nigel Godrich and visual artist Tarik Barri. Godrich has produced Radiohead and Yorke since 1995 and is/was a member of Atoms for Peace. Barri has been collaborating with Yorke for several years now, including on the "City Rats" installation for the ISM Hexadome.

It is unclear exactly what material this tour was intended to focus on; Yorke's last album was Tomorrow's Modern Boxes in 2014. However, since 2015, he's been slowly introducing new songs into his sets, leading some to suspect that a new album is in the works. At this show, he played seven or eight unreleased songs (depending on whether you count "Saturdays" as a unique song) but only five of Boxes' eight tracks. In addition to two songs from Amok (2013, with Atoms for Peace) and four from The Eraser (2006), the biggest surprise was "Spectre", Radiohead's rejected James Bond song.

The show opened on a high note with Yorke sitting at a keyboard for the gradual lead-in to "Interference". After that, he mostly stuck to guitar, bass, and electronics. Godrich mostly stuck to his spot behind a laptop and a stack of electronics, but he also picked up the bass on occasion and sometimes walked over to Yorke's set-up to manipulate something while he was elsewhere. I also caught Godrich adding some heavily processed backing vocals.

The new songs largely followed in the mold of Tomorrow's Modern Boxes: dark, murky electronics with Yorke's wispy, sporadic, manipulated vocals. Any hints of guitar or bass are blended into the mix such as to make the provenance of the sound difficult to determine with certainty. Yorke's beats tend to be unusually punctuated and subtly complex. The sound is primarily electronic, and the rhythm is important, but it's not strictly dance-oriented. There's something vague and obscure about his music that makes it difficult to put your finger on or label conveniently.

The older songs ended up being the predictable highlights simply by virtue of being more deliberate, melodic, and clear. Yorke's politics have always been fairly easy to read if you take the time to listen, but he made that easier in the songs on The Eraser, where the songs have more traditional verse-chorus structures and the lyrics are (relatively) easier to follow and understand. His more recent material tends to be less explicit and more free-flowingly structured.

Barri's visuals ran the gamut of forms and patterns that one could imagine accompanying modern electronic music. It's a good strategy for someone as low-key and reserved as Yorke to have such a strong and varied visual component, because it certainly helps make the scene more interesting. However, Radiohead have always had a great stage and lighting set even when they could get away without it, so Yorke is presumably no stranger to these sorts of considerations. This is why I was a bit disappointed by the "City Rats" installation: I had expected more, and thankfully the visuals at this concert were quite a bit better. The style was substantially different and much more active. Barri didn't seem to follow the rhythms too closely, but the energy with which the visuals moved and developed matched the varying intensity of the music.

While I appreciated Yorke's sense of adventure in trying out so much new material, I didn't find it particularly engaging. His music is enjoyable, but hard for me to focus on. I often found myself drifting and distracted despite my best intentions and legitimate interest. At times I found myself more focused on the visuals than on the sound. Some people tried to dance, but the unusual heat and the humidity of a rainstorm dampened and exasperated the mood of the audience. Yorke's solo work doesn't provide much to hold on to, and the show felt wilted and formless as a result. "Spectre" was quite another matter, but without any accompaniment to the piano and vocals, it too felt robbed of its power.

Scores:

Oliver Coates: C-

Thom Yorke: C+

Tomorrow's Modern Boxes: C-

Amok (Atoms for Peace): C+

The Eraser: B-

Austin City Limits Festival 2016, Weekend 1, Day 1

Event: Austin City Limits Festival 2016, Weekend 1, Day 1

Venue: Zilker Park

Location: Austin, Texas

Date: 30 September 2016

My fourth year! Much like last year, the lineup seemed a bit weak to me, but it still wasn't hard to find a day I wanted to see. Actually, there were a few of acts scattered across the weekend that interested me, but they were thinly spread out and I was unconvinced to go for more than a single day. Since I had to work most of the day and I got inside the festival grounds a bit later than I was hoping, I missed Chairlift and Bombino, but I've seen the latter twice before, and I caught the former on the webcast the next morning.

I wasn't particularly excited about any of the bands playing for a couple hours, so I just picked things that seemed like they had at least a slight chance of being good. I started with Foals, a British band that kept switching contexts between indie rock and hard rock. The indie rock parts were tolerable, particularly when they leaned in an 80s new wave direction, but the harder stuff was just bland heavy riffing and some jarring screaming. I wasn't very impressed by the instrumental performances at any point. They kept threatening to break into big solos, but instead they just kept riffing more. They were missing something in the ways of nuance.

From there I wandered over to St. Lucia on the Miller stage while eating a burrito. I was totally unimpressed by their generic electronica, and the sound from the Cirrus Logic stage was fiercely interfering. I gave up and ended up going to that stage for Cold War Kids, who weren't much better and were also suffering from the cross-park noise. (Seriously, there were three stages all facing into the same section of crowd.) Cold War Kids at least had a decent piano rock vibe, but they came off as fairly generic pop rock. A few hints of Erasure slipped through, but filtered through acoustic piano and electric guitar. It struck me that when they stuck to keyboards, they had something going for them, but every time they'd switch to more guitars and it'd go downhill.

I was supposed to be meeting a friend around this time, but cell phone reception was so spotty near the entrance that we managed to miss each other and I gave up trying to find him after an initial search. I took the opportunity to see Flying Lotus after I missed my chance earlier this year due to the cancellation of Levitation. He was definitely as weird as I was expecting (seemingly just for the sake of weirdness), and he lived up to the reputation of being difficult to classify and categorize. However, this very confusion makes him rather fascinating to behold. He draws you in by forcibly keeping your attention purely with his creative instrumentals. His raps were fine, but the real draw is his skill with blending a psychedelic collage of samples.

Eventually I realized I'd better find my friend, so aided by better reception I went in search of him in the Tito's tent, where Corinne Bailey Rae was playing. She was nominally playing a pleasant take on soul, but she frequently diverted into dancier electronic pop territory. I was less excited by that, but she had a solid band and a great voice at any rate. The bassist was superb but unfortunately kept switching to keyboards to synthesize the instrument in a far inferior fashion.

[Corinne Bailey Rae.]

After a detour to the food stalls and the merch booth, we headed towards the Samsung stage to get a decent spot for Radiohead. Despite that we missed out on some other options in the meantime, it was probably worth it. Here's the setlist:

01. Burn the Witch

02. Daydreaming

03. Ful Stop

04. Airbag

05. How Soon Is Now? [The Smiths cover tease]

06. 2 + 2 = 5

06. The National Anthem

07. Bloom

08. Lotus Flower

09. The Gloaming

10. Exit Music (for a Film)

11. The Numbers

12. Identikit

13. Reckoner

14. Everything in Its Right Place →

15. Idioteque

16. Bodysnatchers

17. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

Encore:

18. Give Up the Ghost

19. Paranoid Android

20. Nude

21. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

22. There There

23. Karma Police

[Radiohead.]

Radiohead, again augmented by second drummer Clive Deamer, began the show predictably and rather inauspiciously. "Burn the Witch", nominally a song driven by rapidly bowed strings, was simulated by a chugging bassline and what seemed to be synth strings, but the energy suffered from the substitution and Thom's voice wandered a little too far off-key. "Daydreaming" works fine as the follow-up track on A Moon Shaped Pool, but on stage its loose, drifting atmosphere didn't help ground things any more than the opener did. Thankfully, the band opted to skip a few more low-key album tracks and dove straight into the higher-powered "Ful Stop", finally kicking things off in earnest. "Airbag" solidified the deal and was greeted by huge applause.

Pausing briefly for a breather, Thom Yorke started singing lines from The Smiths' classic "How Soon Is Now?". The audience sang along, but before they got too far, the band launched into "2 + 2 = 5". From that point onward, they basically played a conventional greatest-hits set, interrupted only briefly for two more songs from the new album: "The Numbers" and "Identikit". While those may be two of the best songs on the album, I was surprised that they only ended up playing five songs from A Moon Shaped Pool. (At least they skipped the redundant version of "True Love Waits" that is a downgrade from the I Might Be Wrong live version, which itself was a downgrade from the original 1995 live version.) They similarly only played three songs from the previous album, The King of Limbs, and they didn't play any of the non-album singles they released around that time.

In fact, they didn't play anything at all that could be considered unexpected or surprising. Even "Exit Music" is one of their regular numbers, and this performance was marred by a brief loss of sound amplification and by an unruly group near me that decided to shout at each other during the quiet start of the song. I was hoping for "Let Down" (which they've been playing surprisingly often on this tour), "Climbing Up the Walls", or anything they hadn't played in a long time, but to no avail. The last time I saw them, they played an obscure b-side ("The Amazing Sounds of Orgy") and a song that wouldn't be released for four years ("Identikit"), so my hopes weren't entirely unfounded.

That said, what they did play was superb after the first couple duds. I'll take "Reckoner" and "Nude" any day, and the audience was exceptionally excited for "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi". I still think "Everything in Its Right Place" works best in its right place as a set- or show-closer, and while it seemed a little too brief this time around, I liked they way they ran it straight into "Idioteque", which they in turn brought to an uncommonly frenzied pitch. "Karma Police" would be hard to complain about, and Thom graced us with a singalong coda of the chorus before leaving the stage for good.

Considering the limits of the festival stage and the fact they haven't toured in four years, Radiohead still maintained a high standard of performance, and they covered a wide breadth of material from the large catalog they have available to draw from. The show was a good time, but it seemed like they were playing a bit by the numbers. There really weren't any surprises and little to make the show stand out in a positive way. Their stature is such that they could afford to experiment and play around, so it was disappointing that they didn't take the opportunity.

[Radiohead again.]

After leaving the festival grounds, I went to Stubb's to catch a late night show of Andrew Bird, which I will cover in the next post.

Scores:

Foals: C-

St. Lucia: C-

Cold War Kids: C+

Flying Lotus: B

Corinne Bailey Rae: B-

Radiohead: B+

P.S. Foals' setlist is here, St. Lucia's is here, Cold War Kids' is here, Flying Lotus' is here, and Corinne Bailey Rae's is here.

P.P.S. Thanks to Jacob!

Radiohead / Other Lives - Live 2012.03.09 Scottrade Center, St. Louis, Missouri

I just couldn't say no to this concert. It was worth the expensive ticket, even if seeing a concert in 19,000-seat hockey arena is weird.

Artist: Radiohead
Venue: Scottrade Center
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Date: 9 March 2012
Opening Act: Other Lives

Setlist:
01. Bloom
02. 15 Step
03. Airbag
04. Little by Little
05. Morning Mr. Magpie
06. Myxomatosis
07. Kid A
08. Videotape
09. The Daily Mail
10. The Amazing Sounds of Orgy
11. Karma Police
12. Identikit
13. Lotus Flower
14. There There
15. Feral
16. Reckoner

First Encore:
17. Separator
18. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
19. Lucky
20. Electrolite [R.E.M. cover tease] → Everything in Its Right Place

Second Encore:

21. Give Up the Ghost

22. You and Whose Army?

23. Idioteque

This show rocked. I don't know when the last time was that I saw a concert this good – and I saw some good concerts last year! I think a large part of my satisfaction comes from just how good the openers were. I hadn't heard the name until I heard they'd be opening the show, but it turns out that Other Lives are a top-notch band. Hailing from Oklahoma and performing as a six-piece, they produced a dense, nearly orchestral sound. Despite the difficulty in ascertaining who was producing what sound in the mass of guitars, keyboards, and strings, they reminded me of a less abstract My Bloody Valentine, or a more compact Godspeed You! Black Emperor, or of the more complexly arranged Radiohead songs from OK Computer or In Rainbows. Suffice it to say, I liked them a lot.

Speaking of Radiohead, the first surprise of the show for the unsuspecting observer was the presence of two drumsets – guest drummer Clive Deamer has become a steady live member of the band for this tour. To open their set, Radiohead played three album-openers, each of which benefited greatly from the expanded percussion. While "There There" has always featured additional percussion from guitarists Johnny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien, "Bloom" also featured Jonny on percussion, and Clive's presence on almost every song of the show certainly set the theme of their performance.

The new material from 2011's The King of Limbs benefited greatly from this percussive focus. Since the album already showed an emphasis on reducing sonic complexity in favor of rhythmic precision and ingenuity, it only makes sense that the band would further expand on that front live. Despite my relative lack of enthusiasm for the new album, most of the songs carried a fantastic energy when performed live. "Feral" still remained a formless, weak, meandering half-song, and "Separator" lost some of its subtle wonder, but the others were surprisingly good.

The rest of the setlist was solid. They played their newest single, "The Daily Mail"; an obscure Amnesiac-era b-side, "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy"; and the brand-new, unreleased "Identikit". Other highlights from their extensive back-catalog were "Reckoner", "Lucky", "You and Whose Army?", and three Kid A songs that all garnered massive crowd approval. Oddly, nothing from before OK Computer was performed; other setlists from this tour usually have one song from The Bends, but at this point in Radiohead's career, they can probably afford to forget about their more mainstream alt-rock days.

The band was in top form, clearly extremely well-rehearsed. The rhythms were unbelievably tight and intricate. Clive added quite a bit in that regard to the classic material – especially to songs like "Reckoner" and the Kid A material. (Perhaps that's why those songs stood out to me so much.) On other songs, Clive's influence seemed minimal, superfluous, or even undetectable. I have no idea what he added to "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" or "There There", for example. "Lucky" and "You and Whose Army?" were the only songs he sat out on, presumably because there was literally almost nothing to add. (Well, there was also "Give Up the Ghost", which was performed by just Thom, Johnny, and a sampled beat, but that's a different story.)

The only weak moments were "Feral", a screwy-sounding guitar part by Johnny on "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi", and some flubbed lyrics on "Karma Police" – which Thom joked about by then changing the chorus: "This is what you get when you forget the words". But every other moment was a perfect performance, and the encores were incredible. It's fascinating to see a crowd respond so well to a song as abstract as "Everything in Its Right Place". The closing song, "Idioteque" went over quite well, and the performance was even more intense than normal, escalating into an extended frenzied jam at its conclusion.

I'm not sure what else to say. It was an incredible performance, possibly even slightly better than the last time I saw them. And Other Lives were probably the best opening act I've seen since Haii Usagi opened for the Faint.

Scores:

Other Lives: A

Radiohead: A

Radiohead / Liars - Live 2008.05.14 Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, St. Louis, Missouri

Band: Radiohead

Venue: Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre (formerly the UMB Bank Pavilion and before that the Riverport Amphitheatre)

City: St. Louis, Missouri (actually Maryland Heights)

Date: 14 May 2008

Opening Act: Liars

Setlist (thanks to ateaseweb.com for covering the holes in my memory [Edit 2019.11.13: archived link]):
01. All I Need
02. Jigsaw Falling into Place
03. Airbag
04. 15 Step
05. Nude
06. Kid A
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08. The Gloaming
09. You and Whose Army?
10. Idioteque
11. Faust Arp
12. Videotape
13. Everything in Its Right Place
14. Reckoner
15. Optimistic
16. Bangers and Mash
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1:
18. Exit Music (for a Film)
19. Myxomatosis
20. My Iron Lung
21. There There
22. Fake Plastic Trees

Encore 2:
23. Pyramid Song
24. House of Cards
25. Paranoid Android

For once, I got a lucky break. Radiohead decided to play eight shows in North America and one happened to be St. Louis. A band that big rarely deigns to approach the Midwest beyond perhaps Chicago, if our uncultured souls are even that lucky. Actually, I think in August they are coming back to the continent for some more shows, but still.

I purchased a lawn ticket, since that came to about $50, compared to an $80 seat and who knows how much the orchestra pit was. The place got packed, and it is a huge venue. There must have been thousands of people there, and I know they were not all St. Louis area residents. I had friends from Kansas, friends from Nebraska, and friends of friends from Illinois there, besides the countless Webster University students I recognized. In the spirit of Radiohead's environmental conscientiousness, I carpooled there with three other friends and came about an hour before the opening band even came on. If I could have, I would have liked to have come even earlier to catch their soundcheck, which apparently included "No Surprises" and a cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me".

Liars came on stage right about 7:00 and played a 40-minute set. Some of my peers were not appreciative, but some were, myself included. While I might know little about their music, I enjoyed their noisy, danceable indie rock thing. A shame that no one was dancing... not the right venue for that, though. I was sitting, like most people, but many people were still walking around, finding seats, and generally milling about. I was getting irritated every time someone in my line of sight stood up and blocked my view, but it ended up being for naught, since as soon as Radiohead hit the stage after a 40-minute break, everyone stood up instantly.

So, I'm not going to elaborate over every last detail, but I'll mention what I thought was interesting. They played for over two hours and did two encores. They played every song off Disc 1 of In Rainbows, one song off Disc 2, and about two or three from each other album except Pablo Honey. They opened with "All I Need", which I thought was an interesting choice, but as one of my favorites of In Rainbows, I welcomed it.

Then came "Jigsaw Falling into Place", for which a video began playing behind the band. I couldn't tell if it was live or pre-recorded, but they had video for most of the rest of the show, and I'm pretty sure the rest was all live. The video was basically five screens mostly focusing on each of the five band members. And the lighting – it was awesome. Seriously the best lighting I've ever seen at a concert – there were all these shafts around the stage, LED lights in back, and bigger spread lights to swamp the whole stage. Each light rig created distinct colors and combined created a strong feeling of movement. For example, during "The Gloaming", the shafts suddenly shifted to illuminated patterns that made it look like it was raining. It started right when Thom began repeating "They should be ringing", which sounded a lot like "...raining" given the context.

After "Jigsaw", I heard a stray guitar note and knew what they were about to play: "Airbag". It rocked, with Thom Yorke playing sleigh bells and all. "Kid A" was a nice surprise – I expected a couple songs off the album of the same name, but not that one. They ended up playing four from Kid A, including another personal favorite, "Optimistic".

I didn't expect "The Gloaming" or "You and Whose Army?" either, but the latter was great. Then was "Idioteque", a highlight of the evening. Jonny Greenwood moved away from his keyboards and guitars and over to an effects patch board thing, just like could be seen in the old promotional video and SNL performance of the song back in 2000. Fascinating. I still don't know what he's doing – I assume he's adding and removing effects and sounds, but who knows. He could be doing nothing and no one would know the difference and we'd all think it was cool anyway.

After that song, the band members kind of shifted about and some disappeared. Just Thom and Ed O'Brien (I think... might have been Johnny... I was standing pretty far away) remained with acoustic guitars. In their perhaps most ironic moment, the two of them did an acoustic version of a song named after the type of synthesizer featured in the recorded version. (I'm talking about "Faust Arp" here.)

For "Bangers and Mash", the stage hands brought out a kick drum and snare for Thom to beat on to complement Phil Selway's drumming. Later, for "There There", both Johnny and Ed had some extra toms that they beat upon in addition to Phil's full set. Radiohead do like their extra percussion – in addition to some drum loops in some of the latter-day songs, the Kid A-era material often had one of the guitarists rocking a shaker.

"Exit Music (for a Film)" started with just Thom acoustic, barely audible above the chatterings of people waiting for the band to hit the stage for their encore, but once the band came in, it rocked. Colin Greenwood's fuzz bass was great, and he kept it up for the follow-up, "Myxomatosis" (although I think Ed doubled his riff on guitar for the live version). And then they went into "My Iron Lung", which was another song I hadn't expected, but it rocked quite well. I know Ed was using an e-bow for that one, and I suspect he'd been using it on several other songs. (It was quite hard to see the details of what was what, but I'm guessing by what I could see directly and via video.)

"House of Cards" worked great near the end of the set, but "Paranoid Android" made an awesome closer. The band rocked that one, too. I know it is vague and probably not helpful for me to say they rocked every other song, but the band manages to balance softer, dancier, electronic, and really rocking songs, and somehow those moods or whatever come across really well when they do them live. It must be the total atmosphere, with everyone in the audience totally into it all, and the awesome lighting and video display. It really all came together nicely.

This was simply a great concert experience, even if I was sitting so far away that I could barely make out who was who on stage. The band performs solid and makes unique setlists each night. I might not have been treated to the absolute best (no "Lucky" or "National Anthem" or "Down Is the New Up", etc.), but there were several surprises that really made it interesting. And the lights really sealed the deal.

Score: A

[Retrospective Score for Liars: B-]

An Essay About Packaging

For a bit of a change, I'm going to write a little essay here. I'd like to say a few words about something about music that I think is important: packaging. Packaging and liner notes, and printed lyrics, and little associated essays, and photographs. Good liner notes, that's what I like. Some well done cover art goes a long way, and I like reading lyrics along with the album. Notes, credits, photos, and so on are not entirely necessary but awfully nice when present.

For me, a big part of buying albums is getting the packaging. This is why I don't like buying digital albums (or just copying or illegally downloading music). I really like to be able to hold the artwork and look at it thoroughly. I like to get to know albums I buy, and it's hard without packaging.

I hate buying CDs from the early 90s that just have no packaging. You get the regular old jewel case, the CD, and the tiniest liner notes possible: just a single sheet, folded once. Maybe it contains lyrics to one song and the credits. I mention the early 90s, but really it started in the 80s when CDs first came out, and when albums were being issued on CD for the first time, often the record company just shrunk the 12" vinyl artwork and crammed it into the 5" CD case.

Some of the worst examples are a few of the Cure's albums, like Boys Don't Cry (1980) (actually an American compilation basically consisting of their first real album, Three Imaginary Boys (1979) and their first three singles), Devo's Duty Now for the Future (1978) (containing literally nothing on the sleeve but a catalog listing from the record company), Moby's self-titled debut (1992), or Electronic's self-titled debut (1991). (I should note that many of the Cure's later albums have much better liner notes, like Disintegration (1989) and Wish (1992).)

[The Cure – Boys Don't Cry (1980). Not much more here than the bland, non-band-approved art.]

[The Cure – Disintegration (1989). A major improvement – interesting, plus lyrics and more art inside.]

Plenty of albums, new and old, just don't have much packaging. Sometimes that's fine. That defined New Order, for example. Actually, any band whose album covers were designed by the Factory artist Peter Saville (namely, Joy Division, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Ultravox, and a handful of others) is nearly guaranteed to have been given a great design. New Order in particular was known to have a sort of mystique, and the lack of descriptive liner notes was part of that. It's still a bit bothersome, but their style was so good that it's hard to complain. Some artists and bands get away with less and it's not so bad (Neil Young's Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) has such a great cover but limited liner notes), but sometimes it feels like some bands just don't care.

[New Order – Power, Corruption, and Lies (1983). This is the original cover by Saville; later CD reissues added the band name and title. A great cover picture.]

[Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures (1979). Another of my favorite Saville covers. Some of the inside art available only on the vinyl version inspired an oil painting I did in high school.]

[OMD – Dazzle Ships (1983). Another Saville work. The vinyl version has a unique design with small holes designed to let the different colors of the inner sleeve come through while pulling the inner sleeve out. A great design.]

[Neil Young and Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969). Simple, but I love that shot so much, and the way it was printed made it grainy in a sort of good way.]

Some bands just get it right. I apologize for my incessant talk of the Smashing Pumpkins, but it happens a lot, and I'm going to mention them again. Their liner notes are superb. Gish was weak, but all four subsequent commercial albums (and the outtakes collection Pisces Iscariot and the b-sides box set The Aeroplane Flies High) all have great liner notes. The albums all have full lyrics, plentiful artwork, photography, full credits, sometimes special notes from the band... it's good stuff. Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness even had two booklets (but it was a double album) – one for lyrics with little clip art-ish (only better) drawings, and one for weirdo collages and the actual credits.

[From the sleeve of The Smashing Pumpkins' Adore (1998). This has always been one of my favorite shots; I painted my own version. The sleeve is thick due to several pages of photos and complete lyrics in different fonts and arrangements.]

The Smiths always had good liner notes too – full lyrics and pictures from any number of Morrissey's favorite movies, TV shows, or whatever. Radiohead have been masters of album art for years now. They may or may not print their lyrics, but the interesting arrays of artworks are never disappointing. They make each album and EP really feel like an item of value.

[The Smiths – "This Charming Man" single (1983). Morrissey always found interesting shots of his favorite actors and models, and this was always one of my favorites.]

[Radiohead – Kid A (2000). This art was mind-blowingly arty and thus great.]

I don't remember exactly when bands first started releasing CDs in packaging other than jewel cases, but that can often be interesting. It's more popular with reissues these days, but Neil Young's Mirror Ball (1995) has a cardboard-ish slip sleeve sort of thing, and it's not bad. I like the nontraditional slip sleeves in that it's at least something different. It helps.

[Neil Young with Pearl Jam – Mirror Ball (1995). A great cover that doesn't even include words.]

Vinyl in general is an entirely separate story. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere and the New Order albums had the same limited packaging when first released on vinyl, but the artwork was bigger. Some albums on vinyl merely have the cardboard-ish outer sleeve and nothing (maybe a bland white sleeve) on the inside, and that's sad. Some would fold open or have elaborate inner sleeves, or just something extra, like John Lennon & Yoko Ono's Wedding Album (1969), which came with photos, articles, drawings, and a copy of the couple's marriage certificate. Genius. Part of my problem with vinyl may be that I'm a music collector of the 21st century and thus the vinyl I buy is always used – so pieces may be missing. However, my father's collection seems to indicate that this is only rarely the case.

[John Lennon & Yoko Ono – Wedding Album (1969). Whoever took this photo had a Japanese edition with all the inserts, which are displayed here.]

Most 60s and 70s material, when first put to CD, seems to be a bit simple – maybe some lyrics or photos or a little write-up. Think of every Beatles or Doors album, or even the Violent Femme's self-titled debut (1983). These aren't too bad, just uncreative and plain.

The best thing is when albums are reissued, usually with remastered sound and bonus tracks. Not only do I love bonus tracks, but these reissues usually have full lyrics and little essays and period photos. I adore these reissues. Echo & the Bunnymen's reissues are notable for all the above, plus an extra paper outer sleeve, but no lyrics (which is even weirder considering the original CDs had printed lyrics). The Cure's reissues (and the reissue of the side project The Glove's Blue Sunshine (1983, reissued 2006)) are fantastic: a whole second disc of bonus tracks, lyrics, photos everywhere, little essays and notes. Wonderful. The Byrds' reissues lack lyrics but have song-by-song notes. Not every band gets it right, though: Psychedelic Furs and Siouxsie & the Banshees reissues are disappointing for the lack of much of anything but a few bonus tracks and notes.

[Echo & the Bunnymen – Ocean Rain (1984). I love this album and its cover. The packaging of the reissue helps, but lyrics would've been great.]

[The Glove – Blue Sunshine (1983). In case the name of the band wasn't clear, the cover makes it clear that this is a Yellow Submarine reference. The reissue keeps the design up throughout the entire lavish liner notes booklet.]

I know I may sound like a hypocrite for questioning the Smashing Pumpkins' $22, 76-page booklet version of Zeitgeist, but my version has a dozen or so pages anyway, and I didn't want to pay around ten cents a page for photography that wasn't even that great. I don't like overpaying, but I like a bit of effort to be put into something. If an artist can spend so much time making the music, how hard could it be to put together a package to make it physically pleasing in addition to the auditory enjoyment?

I could mention many more bands and reissues, but I figure that's enough. Feel free to make suggestions for notable good or bad packaging that I failed to cover.