Review: Radiohead @ Comcast Center

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.

Photos/Review: Radiohead @ Prudential Center

Radiohead @ Prudential Center - May 31, 2012
Photos: Trista Hou / Review: Geanna B.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS! THE TIIIIIME HAS COME! The time has come to yell! To clap! To dance and shout and mooooove yo’selves. It is time to sacrifice yo' booty to the Path Train. It is time to revel 'round the New Jersey Transit.

Can you feel that? Can you feeeeeeel that?! That warm, adrenalined, nothingelsemattersinthewholewideworld afterglow that can only be felt in the aftermath of a show like this? It changes you. It amaaaazes you. It leaves you so satisfied but wanting so. much. more.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have gathered here to worship in the house of Radiohead. In scenic Newark, New Jersey.

Wait, what?

FN News Roundup: April 20, 2012 (Wink Wink Nudge Nudge)

Happy "Friday Before Earth Day," everyone! Look, let's not act like today's significance is lost on anyone... hell, even CNN ran a piece at 4:20pm ET entitled "Even Celebrity Chefs Get The Munchies." Have a nice Friday, have a tasty dinner, and get ready for our 1st Anniversary Concert tomorrow night, mmkay?

• Happy 20th Birthday to Pavement's Slanted And Enchanted! (Stereogum)


• Record Store Day is tomorrow, as all ye music fans know, but you can stream another track from Public Image Ltd.'s RSD One Drop EP, "Lollipop Opera," right now (NME)


• Radiohead are still out on tour kicking the world's collective ass ('sup Coachella goers), but while they were in Austin, they recorded a full-length set that will be available in its entirety this Fall. But as waiting is not at all one of the Internet's favorite qualities, you can now watch a clip of them performing "Lotus Flower" for the ACL session after the jump (The Arcade Fire)


• I'm a big fan of "No. 1 Against The Rush," the first single from Liars' upcoming album WIXIW (out June 5 via Mute). So I'm glad to see it got an appropriately creepy, not-really-NSFW official video. Check it after the jump! (Pitchfork)


• And what would this day be without a new (definitely NSFW) video from The Flaming Lips? (Consequence of Sound)

FN News Roundup: April 16, 2012

WELL HELLO THERE. How was your weekend? Pretty great? Cool, happy to hear it. Have some news, won't you?

• WERE YOU AWARE: Coachella happened over the weekend! It's also happening again NEXT weekend, for the first time in its history! The Internet being how it is, you can likely find professional-or-otherwise footage of everything that happened, but to boil it down: Radiohead was there, and so was an apparently pretty cool but still very odd holographic Tupac. Check out footage of both of those happenings below the jump (Stereogum)


• If you happened to be here in NYC over the weekend, you had the opportunity to see the original mid-'90s lineup of Hole (including Courtney Love) perform two songs together for the low low price of $10 at Brooklyn's Public Assembly. But even if you were here, you probably missed it. Ah well, that's what YouTube is for! (Consequence of Sound)


• One of the great joys of music news reporting is that, every so often, you hear about something that seems designed to blow your mind specifically. St. Vincent teaming up with former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne to release a new album this Fall is very much an example of tha-YAAAAAAY!!! (Rolling Stone)


• M. Ward is playing Prospect Park with Yo La Tengo on August 7, with tickets on sale this Friday (4/20). Sometimes you really don't need to set up a news item at all (BrooklynVegan)


• Ah what the hell, let's watch Jeff Mangum's full Coachella too (Beats Per Minute)

Review: Radiohead @ Philips Arena - Atlanta, GA (+ Hear A New Track From Their Dallas Show)

Radiohead @ Philips Arena - Atlanta, GA: March 1, 2012

By: Jeffrey K.

Hey, remember that time back in the summer of 2001 when we showed up to Stone Mountain 8 hours before the Radiohead show with the intention of spending the day hiking up the "mountain" [read: large mound of granite]? Yeah, we wound up spending the entire day sitting on the blacktop in the 95 degree heat waiting with the other diehard fans hoping to get a choice spot right in front of the stage at the general admission show. I don't think I peed once that entire day. From a distance, I was able to hear them play "Like Spinning Plates" during the soundcheck and I just about lost my mind in excitement (alas, they didn't play it during the show). How about that time we bailed on that super-important Circuits lecture back in college to make it to the amphitheater in time to hang out in the parking lot for 3 hours before the show? How about that last time when we realized we were adults and showed up at 7pm with the reasonable people?

Remember all that? OF COURSE YOU DON'T!!! You're not me! Get your own memories! I bet you have some similar stories though, don't you? I heard on Twitter that there were kids lined up by the Philips Arena entrance as early as 7am.

Radiohead Schedules Additional East Coast Tour Dates (+ Stream Jonny's New Album)

Radiohead @ Roseland Ballroom, 9/28/2011

Oh man, happy Monday to US! As British rock titans Radiohead continue on their 2012 World Tour (you can almost literally Follow Them Around on it, by the way), the band has added even more dates to the run centered around their headlining slot at Bonnaroo in June. And as the 'Roo takes place in Tennessee, you know what that means: EAST COAST TOUR DATES!!

You can check out the updated schedule for June on their website - no NYC dates listed, but they will be swinging by nearby Newark, NJ's Prudential Center for two shows on May 31 and June 1, and then back to Camden, NJ on June 13 for a show at the Susquehanna Bank Center. Tickets for all three Jersey shows go on sale on March 8, as well as for shows in Massachusetts, Washington D.C., Toronto, and throughout the Midwest. Good luck, FN readers!

Meanwhile, Radiohead's virtuouso guitarist Jonny Greenwood (you're awesome too, Ed) has teamed up with his own idol - the Polish composer Kryzsztof Penderecki - on a new orchestral album, which you can stream over at NPR right now. Suffice to say, it's a great day to be a Radiohead fan.

Watch Radiohead Perform Two New Songs In Miami

It feels like awhile since we've heard from my favorite band in the world, Radiohead. But that radio silence (yeah I said it) ended last night as Thom Yorke and the gang kicked off their long-awaited 2012 world tour in Miami with a 25-song show featuring not one but TWO brand new songs!

Check out fan footage of "Identikit" and "Cut A Hole" below, along with a clip of Radiohead performing "Meeting In The Aisle" off of the Airbag / How Am I Driving EP for the first time ever. No doubt this is going to be an amazing run, and you can keep tabs on it all on the impressively obsessive new tour website Follow Them Around, which is tracking Radiohead like NORAD tracks Santa.

Check Out Two MORE Really Early Radiohead / On A Friday Demos

People have been doing a lot of archive cleaning recently, it seems!

Remember back in November when we reported that a plucky YouTube user klootme had uploaded two deep cuts from Radiohead's earliest documented demo tape from 1986 back when they were called On A Friday before Johnny Greenwood had joined the lineup? According to At Ease, the same YouTuber uploaded another more track this weekend: the eerily Smiths-sounding "Fat Girl," which along with a third track - the funky "Fragile Friend" - gives us a deeper look at where the band's heads were at long before Pablo Honey was even a twinkle in Thom Yorke's eye.

Check out both tracks below. klootme commented over the weekend that she won't be probably won't be uploading any more tracks, but with the Internet being what it is / existing, we're betting some more new (old) On A Friday material will surface sometime soon.

UPDATE: Well that was fast! klootme has uploaded a FIFTH demo track, "Lemming Trail," which you can now check out below.

Listen To Two New Thom Yorke Tracks (That He Made For A Fashion Show)

So hey, remember how Radiohead had a pretty busy September last year? Turns out there was even more going on than we thought. As Pitchfork reports, frontman Thom Yorke had put together some new original tracks that month as well... to soundtrack models walking the catwalk at clothing line Rag & Bone's fashion show. Yep.

Check out said new tracks, "Stuck Together" and "The Twist," below. Longtime FN fans may remember that "The Twist" also showed up on Yorke's "Money Back" mix that he premiered on Mary Ann Hobbs' XFM show around the same time, but this is an updated/alternate version.

Seeing as Yorke has already revealed to Rolling Stone that both Radiohead AND Atoms For Peace have new material coming up sometime soonish, these make for additional interesting glimpses as to where Yorke might be headed. Of course we're going to keep our eyes on it.

Listen To (What Might Be) Another Early Radiohead Demo

Check out our review of Radiohead @ Roseland Ballroom over here!

Radiohead fans have been hard at work debating each other this morning over a curious "new" (old) demo that surfaced late last night. Entitled either "How Do You Sit Still" or "Putting Ketchup In The Fridge" depending on who you ask, it sounds like it was recorded in the early '90s and feels like it's bridging the style of  their debut album Pablo Honey into their follow-up The Bends.

Sounds pretty cool overall - check it out after the jump as we await word on whether this thing's legit. (Thanks AtEaseWeb!)

Watch Radiohead Perform "Supercollider" + "New" Radiohead Single Out On 12/19

It feels like it's been awhile since we've heard from the greatest band in the world Radiohead (totally objective statement!), but they've been in the process of rolling out new and exotic dates for their 2012 tour, which you can check out over here.

While we wait for one of those dates to read "New York City Holy Shit," the band has unleashed an outtake from the TKOL Live From The Basement session broadcast from over the summer: a live performance of the slinky Record Store Day single "Supercollider." Check it out after the jump, and you can also see it on the upcoming DVD/Blu-ray release of the Basement session next year.

In other news, the two other non-TKOL tracks we've heard to date - "Staircase" and "The Daily Mail" - will be bundled together in a new single set to be released... next Monday (12/19)! So that's also quite cool. You can preorder that single as well as the DVD/Blu-ray over at Radiohead's store, and you can check out video of both songs below the jump as well because why not.

Check Out Two Early (Really Early) Radiohead Demos

Whoa. So we've been pretty thoroughly obsessed with news on Radiohead's future, but recently an intrepid YouTuber named klootime reminded us that there's still plenty of intriguing stuff in the band's past that's worth checking out.

The following two tracks, "Everybody Knows" and "Girl (In The Purple Dress)," come from Radiohead's earliest demo tape recorded in 1986, back when they were a teenage band known as On A Friday and before Johnny Greenwood came on as a fulltime member. Check them out below to see how Radiohead sounded well before they released everyone's favorite album ever, Pablo Honey - one of the tracks even has a saxophone solo! (Cheers to Some Kind of Awesome for the tip!)

Radiohead Release 3 New Remixes, Announce Initial 2012 European Tour Dates

We've said before that 2011 has been a pretty outstanding year for Radiohead, and it's not over yet. Following the recent release of their TKOL RMX 1234567 album, the band announced today that three additional remixes that didn't make the final vinyl version of the LP would be available for purchase on Monday. But this being the Internet and all, you can go ahead and stream them right here, right now, after the jump.

In more Radiohead news, 2012 is going to be an AWESOME year for the band as they launch their full-on world tour. They've also confirmed some initial European dates, starting on June 30 in Rome and ending on July 6 in Berlin. Check those tour dates out after the jump as well - tickets for the Italian dates are on sale now, with tickets for the other dates available next Saturday (11/26). Good luck, Euro-Friends!
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Radiohead's 2012 European Dates (More TBA) 

June 30th Hyppodrome Capanelle Rome
July 1st Parco Delle Cascine Florence
July 3rd Piazza Maggiore Bologna
July 4th Villa Manin Codroipo (Udine)
July 6th Wuhlheide Berlin

Radiohead Announces First Leg Of 2012 Tour

Check out our review of Radiohead's 1st night at Roseland in September over here!

Well Happy Monday to US! As foretold by prophecy, a.k.a. the band themselves, Radiohead will be returning to the US in 2012 to follow up their brief (but awesome) takeover of New York in September with a full-on tour! Having seen them live during said takeover, we can attest that you do NOT want to miss them on this tour as they bring the tracks off of their excellent last album The King of Limbs to life, along with some new songs possibly!

The first leg of the tour kicks off on February 27 in Miami, FL and ends on March 15 in Glendale, AZ, and you can check out the whole list of cities on that leg below courtesy of the band. No NYC shows during that timeframe, which lead us to believe there's likely going to be a multiple-night stay here during the spring or summer concert seasons. But for you lucky folks in the South and Midwest, W.A.S.T.E. presale tickets will be available beginning this Wednesday November 9, with the general sale for all dates except Tampa's to follow this Saturday, November 12 (Tampa will be on the 19th).

BOOYA

Bid On Ed O'Brien's (Radiohead) Kid A Guitar To Aid The Billie Butterfly Fund

Being as focused on musical nostalgia as we are, we're also pretty partial to musical artifacts - be they recordings of old shows, audition posters, what have you. Which makes it all the more interesting to us when FN favorites Radiohead not only offer up a crucial piece of their history, but do so for a great cause.

According to Clash Music, guitarist Ed O'Brien has offered up the Fender Telecaster he purchased in the summer of 1998 for auction on eBay to assist in a fundraising campaign for Billie Brainbridge, a 4-year-old British girl who was recently diagnosed with an inoperable form of brain stem cancer. The proceeds with go toward Billie's treatment in America - you can find out more about Billie and how you can help at the Billie Butterfly Fund website.

Radiohead fans will recognize that guitar as the one O'Brien used pretty much exclusively during the recording of the band's now-classic album Kid A and its follow-up Amnesiac. It's signed by all five members of Radiohead (nice signature there, Colin) and comes with a note of authenticity. Definitely bid on it if you can't, or visit the Fund's site above to find out about more ways you can help Billie and her family.

Ed O'Brien Shares Details About Radiohead's 2012 Tour

Image via the NY Times

Radiohead. Perhaps we've mentioned them here before. My favorite band of all time and apparent masters of news cycles have followed up their nonchalant / HOLY SH#T confirmation of new material with another reveal by guitarist Ed O'Brien about their upcoming 2012 tour dates.

Speaking with BBC 6, O'Brien noted that the tour would likely take place in the February through November timeframe in the UK and the US at pretty much everywhere you'd expect it to (yay for living in a major city!), and that the dates would be primarily at indoor venues with comparatively fewer outdoor shows due to the nature of The King of Limbs material. Which makes sense - as evidenced by their Roseland shows, I'd agree that the twitchy intricacies of TKOL would be best heard in closer environs. But hey, if they play Liberty State Park again, I'm all about that too. 

Basically, more Radiohead please.

O'Brien also confirmed that the tour would of course focus on TKOL plus songs from throughout their catalog that fit best around them rather than just greatest hits, which for diehard fans is great news anyway. Check out the entire interview in audio form after the jump, and continue waiting impatiently.

Stream Thom Yorke's (Radiohead) Two-Hour BBC 6 Radio Mix

As one might guess from their name, Radiohead seems to be loving the radio a lot lately, with three of the band's five core members popping up on different shows in their native UK throughout the past week. That run culminated last night with frontman Thom Yorke stopping by BBC 6 to take over the station and spin two hours' worth of his favorite tracks, including cuts from Erykah Badu, Low, J Dilla, and Flying Lotus, and even some Radiohead remixes and B-sides.

Check it out on BBC 6's site all throughout this week (until they post the next episode on Saturday, apparently). Good stuff as always.

WELL HOLY SHIT: Radiohead Set To Record New Material In December & January

Awesome image via Michael Jurick, Radiohead @ Roseland review via me. 

The TV appearances, the mindblowing (and hard to get into) NYC shows, the multiple radio appearances... this is likely the most we've seen of Radiohead in the public eye in any year of the band's history, and it's been completely great. And now I have to give Rolling Stone kudos for a second time in as many days, as their new interview with frontman Thom Yorke concluded with the following:

"Radiohead are returning to the studio as well. They will work on new material at their recording space in Oxford, England, in December and January. 'We can get things together quite rapidly at the moment,' Yorke says brightly. He mentions one song, 'Come to Your Senses.' 'We have this version of it. It's a five-minute rehearsal, but it has the essence of what we need...' 'There are a few of those,' he adds. 'It would be fun to have them ready when we go to play next year. I don't know how we would release them.' Yorke smiles hopefully. 'It would be nice to make it all part of the flow and just enjoy it – not think about it too much.'"


That's right, kids. NEW RADIOHEAD MATERIAL, which we'll hopefully get a taste of early next year. Thom also mentions Atoms For Peace and the follow-up to his solo album The Eraser, which is "in flux" and apparently waiting for a bolt of genius to strike it. Betting that won't take long at all either.

Pardon me while I do a little happy dance.

Watch/Stream: Thom Yorke's DJ Set At The Boiler Room

One of these days, I'll actually be in the same room as Radiohead's Thom Yorke as he busts out a kickass DJ set. But for now, watching him spin at Tuesday afternoon/night's TKOL RMX 1234567 party at London's Boiler Room via the Internet will have to do, and as expected it turned out quite awesome.

The Boiler Room has posted an official video and download of his whole set, both of which you can check out below due to the magic of embed codes. As he demonstrated onstage with Flying Lotus at LA's Low End Theory earlier this year, it will never get any less cool / hilarious to see Thom dropping and dancing around to Madvillain's "America's Most Blunted."

Thom, Ed, and Phil are all slated for more British radio appearances this week (Sunday, tonight, and... last night respectively), including another new mix from Thom. Check out Dead Air Space for more info.

Near-Term Nostalgia: Check Out NME's List Of The Top 150 Songs Of The Past 15 Years

Image via MP3Radiohead

If you're like me or a good portion of the FN staff (we have a staff, kinda), 15 years represents roughly 50% of your life. And given that there are likely a lot of significant memories in the span of 50% of your life, there's a lot there that we're very nostalgic about, especially in the music world.

NME, the British music outlet that keeps us posted on how Peter Hook is going to hunt his former New Order bandmates down in a cabin, is celebrating the 15th anniversary of its website with a comprehensive look at what it considers to be the best 150 songs of the past decade and a half. It's understandably heavy on British artists (which I'm cool with), and if you haven't already guessed what came in first, there's a giant clue staring you in the face at the top of this post.

Check the full article out over here with videos and thoughts on each song, along with a full-on list below if you're more of a skimmer. They also made a Spotify playlist out of it all. What do you think of their choices?