Radiohead @ Comcast Center, Mansfield, MA -- May 29, 2012
Review: Dave Bolton
Everything is in its right place, Thom dances in Mansfield.
It says a lot about the Comcast Center in Mansfield that it has a regular schedule of bands that are happy to play there. Most of them get a bit confused about where exactly in Massachusetts it is. I have seen several experienced performers refer to it as Boston on stage but this tree-lined venue is not (and I emphasize NOT) anywhere near Beantown.
The former Great Woods/Tweeter Center is 30 miles away from the center of Boston and can only be accessed through a series of Interstate connections and a Main Street that doubles as paid parking in the yards of local residents for those of us sensible enough to not want to leave our car in the free parking on-site.
The reason some of us pay to park when it is free at the venue? Because Comcast has a capacity of 19,000 and the average time to get out of the car-park after a gig is finished is anywhere between 15 and 120 minutes…which is just one of the problems with attending a concert on a school night. But when it’s Radiohead, it will probably be worth it.
I left Boston at 7 p.m. to travel the 30 miles to the venue by car and traffic was anything but a joy. There is no public transport to the venue, the nearest train station is somewhere in Mansfield, but I have been to many gigs at Comcast and am yet to meet anybody who has relied on commuter rail to get there.
This is a just a long way of saying that I missed the support band – Caribou - and that I heard the first Radiohead song through the trees as I walked to the venue from $15 parking spot on the grass outside somebody’s house. Which wasn’t a major problem; there are worse things than hearing "Bloom" float towards me through the air on a muggy Massachusetts night.
