Between songs like “Daydreaming,” the night’s opener, and “Present Tense,” he was game for the weekend, cracking smiles at the photo pit and subbing out coherent stage banter for general goof ass-ery. Yorke busted out his best valley girl impression, laughed along with the crowd and pushed the show to almost two-and-a-half hours. They’re Phish for the rest of us
Colorado is heaven for jam band fans. The band relishes in switching up its set lists from show to show, sourcing from a deep well of songs, many of which are only known to fans lucky enough to catch them live or hardcore enough to scour the internet for crumbs of obscure tracks that never enjoyed a proper release. We get you, Thom, and we want to drink every imaginable variety of beer in a pint glass with you in our terrible English accents. Arguably, no. After catching the band’s show at Seattle’s Key Arena on Saturday, my nerve grew: Denver doesn’t just this show; it deserves it. Thom Yorke is happy again
“A Moon Shaped Pool” was a beautiful bummer — Radiohead’s break-up album, ostensibly — but somewhere between the album’s release and Saturday, Thom turned that crescent moon-shaped frown upside down. But what if you don’t like Phish and never will? No response isn’t the best response, but we can read between the lines: (We’ve got a Meetup for that, Johnny.)
“Reckoner” live, mate
This one isn’t Colorado specific so much as its human specific. Radiohead can help you understand what it’s like to be a Phish fan. Instead, the band hit Kansas City, umping over Colorado in favor of Seattle and another run down the California coastline. Sound familiar? Few songs still the head and heart like this one. That’s not to mention the fact that Phish heads aren’t all that dissimilar from Radiohead, uh, heads. It’s especially resonant live, with Yorke’s sonorous mewl hitting a thousands of others at the same time, twisting their emotions in the confused way that a video of an adorable piglet hungrily scarfing down a pork hotdog might. Is all hope lost for a show in Colorado this year? tour around its latest album, the gorgeous “A Moon Shaped Pool.” Sure enough: no Denver. Just let it happen. They notice when the band trots out songs that haven’t been played in nine years, dance just as incorrigibly to quirky time signatures, and judging by the healthy amount of weed candy that was flying around me and the thick plumes of dank fog that sprung up in suspicious confluence with the night’s most awe-inspiring songs (“Ful Stop,” “Subterranean Homesick Alien” et al.), they enjoy the odd jazz cigarette just as much. That kind of can-do attitude is way more Denver than it is Seattle, what with all the clouds and the moody baristas and Seattle Freeze. Earlier this year, the band released a short, nine-city U.S. The crowd at Radiohead’s Key Arena concret in Seattle on April 8, 2017. Right? Not that he favored his six string on Saturday. We did; they didn’t email back. Johnny Greenwood got that guitar we stole from him back
No harm, no foul. The band could still announce a show here — maybe at Broomfield’s FirstBank Center, the last venue it played here back in 2012, or Red Rocks, which it hit twice in two years (!) at the turn of the 21st century. Below, a few of many reasons why. (Sierra Voss, Special to the Know)
Radiohead is a rare bird around these parts: It doesn’t focus its time in North America, and isn’t concerned with keeping up appearances in the major cities like most bands. Combine that with the band’s historically eco-conscious tour routing, which favors closely clustered-yet-viable cities like those along the California coast, and you get two Colorado Radiohead shows in the last 14 years. The band hasn’t played Red Rocks since it dropped the song in 2007, and knowing that song could technically happen at that venue is enough to make us want to ask Radiohead’s management if they’re absolutely sure the band doesn’t have another show up its sleeve in the state this year. He slung a bow across one for “Pyramid Song,” but the multi-instrumentalist spent most of his time tickling ivories, banging on a snare drum and coaxing electronic gurgles out of a synthesizer. Nine American cities for an entire album cycle is a crazy small tour, even for Radiohead’s standards, and the band is only booked through July, and intermittently at that.