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Radiohead @ Radio City Music Hall, NYC
by Kat Ascharya


At the penultimate gig of their perpetually sold-out year-long tour, Thom Yorke and company must have the feeling the weight of constant critical adulation and scrutiny from their official reign as the Band That Saved Music. That and an audience whose appreciation was expressed more as rapt reverence than wild enthusiasm made the Oxford quintet seem more subdued than at previous area appearances. Yorke even introduced the B-side and fan-favourite “Talk Show Host” as “a song about being tired – being tired of performing.” Despite it all, Radiohead offered a stellar performance suffusing every note with emotion and drama – remarkable, considering how many times the emotion has to have been felt throughout the tour. Radiohead filled Radio City’s cavernous space majestically with cascades of guitar bombast and a light show just this side of Pink Floyd. The venue nicely closed one chapter in the band’s saga and provided an apt warm-up for the even larger venues the future holds for them.