Radiohead at the Susquehanna Center, Camden NJ, 8/12/08

I know that Radiohead fans can go overboard in their effusive praise of the band but seeing them in a crowd of 25,000 when they are at their tightest is akin to a religious experience. Between their mind-blowing visual effects, constructing layers of sound, and putting together a killer setlist, no other band can touch them when it comes to delivering a phenomenal show that will have the audience talking about it for months and years to come.

Longtime Radiohead fans can easily point to a specific show that left them in awe and unable to form coherent sentences for the duration of the ride home. While Camden 2008 won’t make the list of top 5 concerts for those jaded and spoiled uberfans, for the first time RH concert-goer (and there seemed to be plenty of the “In Rainbows crowd” last night), the performance will easily go down as the best concert of the year in this area.

After opening with “15 Step”, the band launched into “There There (The Boney King of Nowhere)”, one of their best live songs with Ed and Jonny (guitar slung behind back), pounding on tom-tom drums from opposite ends of the stage as Thom sings, “In pitch dark I go walking in your landscape.” No matter how many times I see or hear a live version of “There There”, that intro always gives me the chills.

Throughout the night, the band mixed in songs from their whole discography, save Pablo Honey, and played every song from In Rainbows. They even played a non-album track (sorta) with “Go Slowly” from the In Rainbows bonus disc. The highlight of the night for me was “No Surprises”. A small portion of the crowd sang full throat along to the lyrics “the government / they don’t speak for us,” which echoes Michael Stipes’ anecdote about the 2003 Radiohead show at the Beacon theater in New York. While only some sang along, the line was met with a loud ovation from the entire Camden crowd. Good stuff, that.

The show ended with “Everything In Its Right Place” as the band walked off stage one by one, looped samples of the song playing back through the speakers (”everythingeverythingeverythinginitsrightplace…” tumbling over and over) until a couple of stage hands came out to turn off the machines. A fitting show closer that left the audience (mostly) elated and exhausted buzzing into the night.

And now… for my spoiled and jaded complaints. Let me disclaim this by saying that even the worst Radiohead concert is better than 99% of all of the other concerts I’ve been to. That being said, the band didn’t seem to be at the peak of their powers tonight. Whether it was them leaking energy from a long tour or the speculation that Thom is under the weather, there seemed to be something off-kilter with the show, especially a confusing and scattered rendition of “The Gloaming”.

The set list provided nothing special. Nothing that left you with the impression that you were glad you went to this Radiohead concert specifically. When you are a super geek and you are following the entire In Rainbows tour via show statistics, not getting “Exit Music” or “Paranoid Android” or the holy grail of a rarely played song is extremely disappointing. “Exit Music”, a hauntingly beautiful piece of songwriting, needs to be performed at every concert. Life just isn’t complete without hearing Thom sing “there’s such a chill, such a chill” to a stunned crowd as the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

[Show as slideshow]

(additional photos courtesy of sweetcell)

Setlist:
1. 15 step
2. there there
3. morning bell
4. all i need
5. the national anthem
6. videotape
7. arpeggi
8. the gloaming
9. where i end and you begin
10. faust arp

11. no surprises
12. jigsaw
13. the bends

14. idioteque
15. climbing up the walls

16. nude
17. bodysnatchers
–Encore 1–
18. house of cards
19. lucky
20. go slowly

21. just
22. street spirit
–Encore 2–
23. reckoner
24. planet telex
25. everything in its right place