Radiohead played their first gig of this year in Lisbon, Portugal. The evening, with Four Tet supporting was devided into two sets. Thom cared to explain to us the fact that there would be an intermission and said they'd "play some new stuff first and then come back to play older stuff" and joked that "we'd probably be here until 7 am" which sounded like it wasn't his idea..

They opened the first half with 'There, there' with Ed and Jonny playing drums and seven other new songs. 'There, there' was the only song that was played once before in a webcast by the band. Although Thom said, "we're not allowed to tell you the name of the songs", you can check the full list on the right. After 10 minutes the band played old songs only with the encore including, lift, which was introduced as "kind of an old song" and the mp3s don't fool you, they've ditched ed's vocal part..

The band also had 'sit down, stand up' and 'exit music' as optional songs but they didn't play them this night..

'we suck young blood' had thom sitting at the piano and a lovely "la la la"-type vocal section and colin played some bizarre metal & wood percussion thing..

'punch up for a wedding' has a funky slow melancholic feel and it's definitely a grower and they went back to the 3 guitar format on 'up on the ladder' which was a bit unfocused but rocking and thom played some acoustic during 'i will' which has some more beautiful vocal harmonies..

during 'the bends' thom changed the first "wish it was the 60's" part to something like "magazine, magazine" and mumbling something else i dunno if he's done it before and 'dollars & cents' had the usual freaky moody light setting only enhanced even more and they end it with thom repeating an additional "quiet down" part with the band stopping abruptly as he sang it, really cool!

Check the multimedia section for live recordings. [thanks mary, david, nemisis, roars, clare & cathy]

Review by Yaron:

This was the 9th Radiohead show that ive seen and definitely one of the best. First Id like to thank Enela for selling me the ticket.

I arrived to the venue at about 18:30 with Enela and her boyfriend Ben. We then met Sofia, oklahoma and a few more people from the ateaseweb.com messageboard. We got in at about 20:15 or so.

The venue is quite good. a bit bigger than what i expected but very nice. The sound was good. The crowd was pretty good (at least where i stood)...

I was standing in the 3rd row a bit to the left just in front on Ed and not too far from Thom. I had quite a good view considering how short i am. I was actually quite surpised...

Four Tet started his show at about 20:55 and played for about 45 min. He was quite ok I guess, but i got bored in the end. He just stood there playing with 2 laptop computers.

Radiohead started at about 10:10. I wont bore you with the setlist as you can easily find it (top of this page, ae). They played about 7 new songs, then went off to a 20 min break and played a regular short Amnesiac setlist with a few suprises. The new songs didnt sound for me like ok computer not like Kid A stuff. most of them were quiet ballads execpt for 2 harder songs. they were all pretty good imho. thom played 3 songs in his piano. Ed and jonny played drums on the
first song.

The 2nd part was great too. they played a few ok computer songs as well as 2 the bends songs. of course it was a big suprise when they played lift as the first song in the encore.

In the end it was a great show. Not sure it was such a great idea to play all the new songs in a
row. the crowd was quite bored and only woke up when they started the regular set. but who am i to tell radiohead what to do...

So it was a great show, the band were really in a great mood and so was i. too bad i can hardly walk now. i will probably just seat in the next shows or else i dont think i can survive until the end of the tour..

only 10 shows left...

yaron

Review by Dan:

By the sound of it, we werent the only people over from london for this gig, in the impressive Coliseum. Kind of like a big Shakespeare's Globe theatre in london - lots of wood and lots of cool looking boxes. Extremely hot too.

So, the gig itself was very enjoyable, if not quite up to their usual standards. They sounded a bit ring rusty, which is fair enough after a long time off, and the sound, though loud enough, was a little muddy so that No Surprises, for instance, wasnt quite as exquisite as usual.
Also, the interval deflated the atmosphere, so playing straight through as you reported for the second night is a much better idea.

It was a good idea playing the new songs at the start, but some of them were a little slow to come across first time heard. From memory, There There and Fight at a wedding got the best crowd responses.
This is one for fellow thirty somethings - Ed and Jonny drumming for There There is just like "The Voice" live by Ultravox !

The gig was nicely lit, especially the mirror ball lighting for pyramid song which went down really well and totally suited the venue.
The band also seemed to be really enjoying it and all in all it was a really good gig.

dan

review by Nunu Galopim for Portugese Newspaper 'Diario de Noticias' (translated by Rui Filipe)

Visibly enchanted with the reaction of the Portuguese to the new songs, Thom Yorke, seating to the wall piano (but to middle of the room), turned to Ed O'Brien and asked him how to say the "such" sentence, and there he tried in Portuguese: "Tá-se Bem" (we feel cool)... AND the applauses were heard really loud again in the Coliseum.
The night was in fact special. And, without a doubt, unforgettable. Just like in 1997, in the last visit of Radiohead to Portuguese stages, the reunion was made in climate of rehearsal of new songs. Five years ago, Lisbon was the first city to listen OK Computer new themes. On Monday, the
Coliseum of the Recreations returned to the city to rehearsal task-laboratory of what can be the next album of the group, whose recordings should continue after having finished this tour in Portugal and Spain (the only territories where Radiohead will play this year).
Intelligent, the show was divided in two parts. In a first one we heard, the new songs. And what a songs! Marking a return to the guitars, frequently counting with the piano as their best friend, the group showed how the electronic adventures of Kid A and Amnesiac gave birth to a language that
now is transposed for a rock language, once again putting the group in the vanguard of the invention. The surprise drove the tasty discovery of themes as the "zeppeliniano" Up On The Ladder, the ballad (almost of seasoning fifties) I Will and powerful Myxomatosis (clearing candidate the single!). Of the unpublished ones new they were still listened the equally captivating
There There, Scatterbrain, We Suck Young Blood, Sail To The Moon and Punch Up Attn Wedding.
After a pause of 20 minutes, the five returned to the stage for an hour and a half of "classics". They centered great part of the alignment in songs of Kid A and Amnesiac, approaching them in a "more urgent" and fast way, just as it happened in the shows of the 2000 and 2001 Tour (that Portugal didn't see). Themes like Idiotheque, Everything In It's Right Place or even National Anthem know new pulsation faster, more contagious. At the same time, ballads and themes of environmental complexion like beautiful Pyramid Song, Morning Bell, brilliant Dollars & Cents or You And Whose Army won a more fragile body... Of old memory they only played two themes of The Bends, four of OK Computer and the unpublished "older" Lift.
For the theatrical effect of the songs contributed a lot, not only Thom Yorke's communion with the public but also a minimalist stage in resources (several focuses and five small light towers), it guaranteed versatile sceneries, each one more perfect for the song in subject. The sound was also
of first water (expression in portuguese to say "first quality", denouncing the totality of the lyrics, effects and tones of the instruments, serving the fragility of Thom Yorke's voice equally. If a conclusion is possible with just a stage night, it is the one of the certainty that we have, in the next Radioheads album, one more candidate to deserve a hight place in the history of the music. Let's wait some months.... Maybe still this year, maybe only in 2003...
In the end of the night, visibly happy, five Radiohead commented on the opening of the Portuguese to the discovery of new songs. But it is also true that Lisbon only saw few concerts as great as this!

----------------------
This is the translation of the section on the bottom of the page:
----------------------

Isn't this the best band in the world? (Sera esta a melhor banda do mundo?)
N. G.

In the turning of the milénio, when everyone inevitable asked who were the best bands ever the Beatles were, without surprise, pointed as the band of the century (some have gave them the title of band of the Century, in spite of the pop music be just reality of the second half of the century XX).
Though, between 1998 and 1999, under the effect of the album OK Computer (that contaminated everything and and everyone in the world scale, receiving the election of better album pop/rock of the nineties almost unanimously), some British publications of the specialty putted Radiohead ahead of Beatles in tables of " hundred better albums ever". In one of the cases won The
Bends (1995), in other OK Computer (1997).
The world 1997/98 tour (that the director Grant Gee documented in Meeting People Is Easy) he showed as a band of clear alternative profile was to winning an unexpected statute of first division. In 2000, with the electronics of Kid A and Amnesiac showed in Radiohead a not vulgar
resistance capacity to the power of seduction of the global popularity.
Though, in spite of the tone more essayist of these albuns, both were very well received by the fans. Pyramid Song, for instance, was number one in the Portuguese table of singles in 2001.
After Kid A/Amnesiac ERA, the return begins now see the light of the day.
Lisbon was the chosen city for the world revelation of songs that mark the reunion with the guitars and an instinct rock more evident, though impregnated of new ideas and sceneries of pure actuality. The international journalists' tide that flooded the Coliseum of the Recreations in the Monday nights and yesterday it evidences the "thirst" that the press musical waited for the new record.

N.G

translated by Rui Filipe (friendlyrui)