Thom Yorke in Concert is not Radiohead, and it Still Rules

Saturday night I saw one of the most interesting and entertaining live shows I've ever witnessed. Me, my buddy and 2 of my brothers saw Thom Yorke on his Modern Boxes tour.

It was incredible. I even liked the opener, which is out of the norm for me. The guy who opened, I unfortunately do not remember his name, was a very solid cellist. He played his cello really well, and he did some interesting things with it. The way he used the amplifier and pedal board he had was pretty cool. He played some rock songs, some classical stuff and did quite a bit of looping. It was cool. I found myself nearly entranced by his performance. Even when he started to play some recordings of children and people talking, and then proceeded to play cello over it, I found it very neat. I liked this guy. Then it was Thom Yorke's turn.

Going into this show I did not know what to expect. Yes, I had previously listened to the record he put out prior to this tour, and I have listened to his other solo stuff, but I had never seen him solo. I have seen Radiohead on multiple occasions, but they played Radiohead songs. I knew what I was going to see when I went to those shows. I was prepared to be surprised, in a good way, by this show though. I am a Radiohead fan. I, as I have said, listened to all of his solo stuff, so I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy it. In listening to his Modern Boxes stuff I did expect a layer of electronic music. Yorke seems to be leaning towards that style with his solo stuff, in a good way. I'm not a huge electronic music fan, unless it is done right. Yorke does it right.

So, when he came on stage, I was very, very excited. He and his 2 other musicians got right into it. Yorke said hi, and they immediately jumped into their set. Yorke moves and dances and sings and does his thing on stage no matter what. Another one of his band mates was playing all different kinds of instruments and he was as in to the set as Yorke seemed. Then there was the third guy. He stood in one spot the whole time and was seemingly typing on a keyboard. I'm sure he had something to do with the entire show, but he didn't move at all, until the end when he waved to the crowd.

That being said, I really, really liked what I heard from Yorke and his band. They played some wild, jumpy, bouncy and overall cool music. It was all very, very different from what I expected. But, I loved it. Even when he did some of his older solo stuff, like "Black Swan", it was a totally different arrangement from his first recording of the song. And I loved it. His new original stuff is also very, very good. It is the upper echelon of electronic music. Yorke is a total pro, and it showed on Saturday night. I like some electronic bands, like Ratatat, but Yorke is so, so much better than the stuff they do. The songs were unique and different and fun and I even felt a bit if a hip hop vibe here and there. It was so cool.

Also, the show going on behind the band, on the 4 separate screens they had, was one of the coolest things I have seen in my lifetime. It was all shapes that would change into other shapes. He also had this cool screen that was totally white, then a black ink drawings started to fill in all the white space. It then turned into a full on crazy color palette. I'm also not big into strobe light type stuff, but I found myself completely engaged and enraptured by what was going on behind the band. It was so cool. There were times I could not take my eyes off what was going on on those 4 screens.

Finally, the double encore was great. Yorke and his band came back out after about an 80 minute set and played three more songs for the first encore. Yorke did a solo version of "Reckoner", and it was so cool to hear it in a totally different way. A song that is so drum heavy was played brilliantly, minus the drums, by Yorke and his computer and mixing board. When he came back for the second encore, he played one song, and it was the most normal one of the show, but it was a perfect ending. He played one of his new songs from the movie "Suspiria", for which he wrote and arranged all the music. It was a pretty, beautiful and scary song that Yorke, even while messing up at one point, even saying "whoops", played excellently.

This show was amazing. I am so, so glad that I got to see it live. I'm so glad that I got to experience with some very important people to me. This was a great night. It was a night I won't soon forget. This show was amazing, and it was one of the better shows I've ever been to. What a night. A special thanks to my wife who bought the tickets as an early birthday gift. She really knocked it out of the park. 

If you are a Radiohead fan, go see this show. You will love it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He does not care for electronica, unless it is good. Let that be a lesson, if your genre of music is not widely accepted, make it good.

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"A Moon Shaped Pool" is Further Proof that Radiohead is the Best Band in the World

Make your ears, heart, and mind happy with some good music

News alert, Radiohead released a new album yesterday. I bought it, but I waited until today to listen to it, and it is incredible, just like everything else Radiohead does. The record, "A Moon Shaped Pool" shows the growth and the same experimentation that the band has done since they busted out on the scene in the 90's. The record has rock, ethereal music, slow songs, touching songs, basically, it has everything we expect and love from Radiohead.

I know that there are other guys in the band, but Radiohead is really all about Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood. They are the two geniuses behind this wonderful band. Yorke is the eccentric, yet super talented front man that does a little bit of everything. Greenwood is the genius that writes and sonically puts all the music together. "A Moon Shaped Pool" has their separate genius on full display. Yoke croons and masterfully sings his way through the entire 11 song album. Greenwood's touch and elegance is all over the place in the music. Johnny Greenwood may be the greatest and most interesting person currently working in music. He is a true genius. You have to look no further than the second track on the album, "Daydreaming", to hear and realize how awesome Greenwood is. The song reminds me a lot of the slower stuff that was on "Kid A", but this song sounds a bit more grown up and put together with a purpose. I love the slower, weirder stuff on "Kid A", but it seems slapdash and spackled together. It's weird for the sake of weird. But on "Daydreaming", the weirdness and the etherealness has a real place in the song. It's structured and so well put together. The song has a base, verse, chorus, verse, but Greenwood has his trademark sound, and it is incredible.

The rest of the album is just as good. The opener, "Burn the Witch", is what a band like U2 strives to sound like, but they can't get there. Radiohead out does U2 on a song that sounds like U2. It's a great way to start out the new album. Yorke sings the hell out of it and the band sounds great. The third track, "Decks Dark" is currently my favorite song. It has acoustic guitar at the beginning, with slower singing, and it builds and only gets a lot better from there. Yorke absolutely crushes this song. It sounds like something off "The Bends", but it is better. They have some longer songs, a la stuff on "Kid A" or "OK Computer", like "Ful Stop", "The Numbers" and "Present Tense" that are great as well. As I've said, they sound grown up and mature on this record. You can tell they worked very, very hard on this record. These three songs are really good too. Sometimes slower, more musically charged Radiohead songs can feel a bit like a chore, but not on this record. They all fit in perfectly and they are perfectly placed on the record. They are all in the exact right spot. One of these will follow a faster or sweeter song and it's excellent placement. The last two tracks on the album are dynamite. Track 10, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief" has an incredibly long title and it is an incredibly awesome song. Yorke, once again, sings perfectly. He has that lower, almost scary type voice that gets louder and nicer as the tune goes on. The music accompanying him is just as good. There's great guitar, drums, bass and whatever the hell else Radiohead wants to do because they are the best. The song builds and builds and it is quite fantastic. The closer, "True Loves Waits" is absolutely beautiful and kind of sad. Yorke croons and moans and wails his way through the song and it is magical. His voice portrays love, hurt and pain so well. You can sympathize with him so easily. He makes you feel his hurt and his pain and we all can relate. The music is quiet, but just as important as Yorke's vocals. It is all so perfectly made and perfectly recorded by the perfect band.

Obviously, I love this record and I love this band. We all knew that something was coming when Radiohead went off all of social media one day before the announcement of the record, and I couldn't be happier with the outcome of their one day hiatus from social media. Radiohead can do no wrong, in my opinion. They are, and always will be, the perfect band. They are timeless. They make some of the best music that have ever been written and released. They are geniuses. And they know exactly how to market and promote themselves in the new digital age. They were one of the first, if not the first, band that let people decide what they wanted to pay for a record when they released "In Rainbows", and now, they can release a record on a Saturday, on Mother's Day, and it will be the talk of the internet for the next 7 days. They are awesome.

To all the people, the hipsters that is, complaining that Radiohead is "overrated" or "need to stop making music" or "old", shut up. This band is the best and we should be lucky that they are still creating some of the best music ever for us to listen to. The hipsters complaining about Radiohead are the same assholes that wear skinny jeans, collect vinyl, wax their mustaches and work in coffee houses that only do slow drip or French press coffee. These hipsters are the problem and they are the main ones complaining about a new Radiohead album. Get over yourself and start dressing more normal and stop judging me because I'm an unabashed fan of Radiohead. I will buy all their records, no matter how many they release and I'm sure I will love them all. These are the same people that still badmouth "The Simpsons" and complain about not having enough room to ride their unicycles because of people driving their cars. So, don't listen to the hipsters, listen to me and buy this new Radiohead album, it is awesome.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He may have a big bushy beard, but he is no hipster. Make sure you follow all of Ty's non-hipster thoughts on twitter @tykulik.