Radiohead at Nissan Pavilion 5/11

So through all of my years of being a Radiohead fan, somehow I had never seen them live, so this was one to cross off my list of bands to see (and one of the few $50+ shows to which I'm willing to go). My brother has seen them a couple times, and I have wanted it to happen, but somehow they never played Cincinnati or Durham or DC when I was capable of going or getting tickets. Now that that's out of the way, I can hope that my next Radiohead-concert-going experience is a little different from this one. And that monsoon season in DC needs to be scheduled during a time when I'm not going to see an outdoor concert.

Also, I just wanted to say that Radiohead had little at all to do with anything bad during the concert. Except for a longer delay than I would have wanted before playing (due to the setting up of the LED lighting). Setlist (and I have this in bootleg form!):

All I Need
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Lucky
15 Step
Nude
Pyramid Song
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Myxomatosis
Idioteque
Faust Arp
Videotape
Paranoid Android
Just
Reckoner
Everything In Its Right Place
Bangers + Mash
Body Snatchers
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Like Spinning Plates
Optimistic
Karma Police
Go Slowly
Planet Telex
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Fake Plastic Trees (not planned, based on the setlist, but dedicated to those on the lawn (that's me!))
National Anthem
House of Cards

I was a little late walking out of my house to meet up with the 9 others going (I could list them all, but MBG has already written this up, so I'll keep some of it briefer than otherwise). But I saw Sherpa Herpes driving down my street, park directly in front of my place and then run off. I was intrigued and decided not to continue on to the Castle, and instead, call him and then wait for him to return. It was raining, but not that hard by that point. I had remembered to bring my umbrella and "waterproof" jacket, along with putting my garbage can on my bathroom sink (it started to leak again, but not as badly as before). Everyone else was getting ponchos and rain boots and the like. I ended up riding in the back of MBG's car from Target to the Castle and that wasn't an entirely fun trip. I used to like riding in the backs of cars, but then again, riding in the back of a Suburban is what gave me my blog handle, so it isn't my favorite thing to do anymore, nor do I eat Handi-Snacks. I switched my shoes for a pair of Flux's waterproof boots that were too big. Unfortunately, I don't own a pair of long underwear and didn't wear any of my thick and long socks. And I had a hot dog bun for dinner (after a large and delicious brunch with sorbet), which was nice, as I wasn't going to eat anything more for a while, and I wasn't near the garbage can, so I just put the bun bag in my pocket. This will come into play later.

We all ended up having to go in an SUV and a non-SUV, which isn't that bad, but will come into play later as well. We left around 5:30ish, and drove in the pouring rain for the next two hours to Nissan. And then came upon this. Not actually stopped, but not too far off. Luckily we just made it before they closed off the road we came in on. We eventually got to the far parking lot (Mountain Dew F-3, I believe), and started to soggily make our soggy way to the soggy venue itself. Which isn't that bad, sort of reminds me of Riverbend in Cincinnati, although larger and in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, there were enormous rivers running through the parking lot and near the gates. We went off to the side and started the trudge up the stairs. And then the walk through the mud to a place on the lawn that seemed ok. The Liars were on then, and I couldn't tell if I hated them because I was miserable or because they sucked. Probably a combination of both, but I wasn't impressed with them at all. And they were off some time after 8. Times will be approximate for most of this, as my phone was ensconced in the plastic bun bag, because that was the only way it wouldn't have been completely waterlogged and probably non-functioning. Somewhere in between sets, a very drunk group of people start screaming for people to move, and stand clear. After a few minutes of this, one of them does a belly flop slide down the hill, luckily taking out no one, and he seemed to enjoy himself. But there is no way I would have done the same thing. So much mud getting in so many places...

Radiohead started setting up their Awesome LED Light Show. The long strings of LEDs were all in rows (much clearer when you're there), and would light up with the songs, and could display images. Behind that was a large LED screen that would show each member of the band in all their monochromatic glory. The light show was itself extremely cool.

Radiohead started to play around 9ish, and I can't complain about anything they did. Great setlist (especially with the added Fake Plastic Trees, although to make up for the rain, we could have used a little Electioneering...), with a fine mix of newer and older stuff. And Thom was clearly very apologetic about the rain and how miserable everyone on the lawn was (and Colin posted this). By Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, I was pretty uncontrollably shaking and there were puddles of water in my boots. I was regretting my decision to come. But I was determined to stick around, because I knew that the encores would be awesome.

And they were. Oh man, I regret nothing about the concert. For the chance to see Fake Plastic Trees live, singing along in a monsoon, and attempting to move while freezing and wet, well, there are few experiences in my life that will be as unique. Sure, I was concerned about my ability to move after the show, and I was concerned that I might lose a toe, but those were pretty minor compared to seeing one of the best bands of my lifetime play a show. For those of us who made it all the way through, yay. To those of us who didn't, well, I hope you enjoyed the dry car.

After House of Cards, a song that gets better every time I hear it, they finally finished. It was sometime just after 11, and we started trudging up the hill, and spent another 20 minutes or so getting from there to the cars. When we got there, we started to take off as many wet things as possible, but only one of us had extra clothes. So I spent a while trying to take off my boots in the small backseat, and then had people empty the boots and I squeezed my socks out onto the pavement. Then we sat, me with my wet bare feet and soaked through clothes, and everyone else just soaked. And sat. And sat. After an hour, Vermonstrous noted that we hadn't moved in an hour. Tomahawk Chop went off to the bathroom and came back, confirming something we'd heard earlier: all but one road had been washed out and it would be a while (apparently, many people were turned away from the venue entirely, which completely sucks). After almost an hour and a half, there was some movement in the parking lot ahead of us, but we still didn't move for about a half an hour. It only took about ten minutes to get out of the lot once we started to move, but that two hours to move thing was rough.

And there was still a 70ish minute drive, slightly longer due to us taking the first exit to Lee Highway off 66 rather than the second, so I didn't get back to my place until 2:45, and I was soaking wet, and I couldn't put shoes back on, so I ran back to my place from the street in the rain, freezing. I piled my wet clothes on the floor in my bathroom and went to sleep sometime around 3. Woke up with my alarm at 7 and then promptly went to bed for another hour, making me late to work, and cranky. Well, crankier than normal.

I usually use a few different status messages for my gchat, and the one I had switched back to last week was "Rain also falls in an Earthward direction." Somehow I can't find the original quote anywhere, but it was about something being very obvious. After the concert, I have to say, that isn't true. It was raining sideways. And the crowd was cheering every mention of rain in the lyrics.

Random things: Thecar (that's his new blog name, until someone comes up with something better) was on the phone with the other car after the concert, and asked them if they had any wasabi peas. I just heard that, didn't realize he was on the phone, and asked if he was talking to me. After he got off the phone, I told him I had some wasabi peas in my bag, because I didn't really eat beforehand, and wanted to make sure I had some way of getting some food later. Apparently, he really really wanted wasabi peas, and as I will buy them whenever I see them in a store, I had a bag of what he wanted. He then said, "Let me try this again, do you have any matzoh ball soup in your bag?" If only. Hot soup would have been perfect to warm me up.

Wounds of concert: I have a cut on my hand from my umbrella, which was so wet it was dripping through for most of the concert, and two big red marks on the back of my Achilles tendons where the wet boot rubbed my skin for a few hours. And I've been limping slightly for the last couple of days because of it. The only thing that wasn't soaked when I got home was my phone. It was only slightly wet. I had to toss a bunch of business cards and hold all my money and wallet up to a space heater to dry them out. And even with all that, Radiohead was worth it.