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Thom Yorke In Concert
Thom Yorke has never just been Radiohead's frontman. The English maestro of melancholy, gifted with an indelible, otherworldly falsetto, has always had much more up his sleeve. Since his career launched in the early 1990s, he's survived grunge, helped reinvent alternative rock, and brought experimental electronic and IDM music to the mainstream. He has been an innovator and influencer for decades, with and without his bandmates. And he's one of the most electric live artists to come out of the '90s alternative scene—his dancing is as unforgettable as his singing.
Yorke first stepped away from Radiohead to cover Roxy Music songs for the soundtrack to the 1998 film ‘Velvet Goldmine,' and he lent his vocals to tracks with artists like Unkle, Sparklehorse, PJ Harvey, and Björk. By the turn of the century, he started diving more into electronic music, which was nothing entirely new for Yorke—he had actually dabbled with techno as a student at the University of Exeter. But this time around, he looked to IDM innovators like Aphex Twin and Autechre for inspiration, which showed plenty on Radiohead's acclaimed albums ‘Kid A' and ‘Amnesiac.' These influences would continue to sit with Yorke, who finally put out his own collection of dark, poignant electronic music with his 2006 debut solo album, ‘The Eraser.' The album peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and topped several other charts, including the Billboard Top Rock Albums and Tastemaker Albums, with help from stark, skittery singles "Analyse" and "Black Swan." It was also nominated for the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.
A few years later, Yorke took a song from that very album—"Atoms for Peace"—as inspiration for the name of his new band, which included longtime Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, Red Hot Chili Peppers' bassist Flea, drummer Joey Waronker, and percussionist Mauro Refosco. The group first took to the stage in Los Angeles in 2009 and performed select shows, including an appearance at Coachella in 2010, before releasing ‘Amok' in 2013.
Another few years and another Radiohead album down, Yorke would finally release his second solo electronic album in 2014, ‘Tomorrow's Modern Boxes,' this time via BitTorrent, where it was downloaded over a million times in under a week. Soon after, he began dipping into soundtrack work and composed his first feature film soundtrack for the 2018 horror film ‘Suspiria.' In between all this work, Yorke has been known to do surprise DJ sets, but there's still nothing quite like seeing him perform his own songs.
Loved seeing Thom but the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium completely sucks. The seats are uncomfortable (no legroom) and worst of all, the sound was muffled, rattley and echoed. I won’t go to another show there.
I don't know Thom's solo work very well at all, but it didn't matter. The visuals on the screen that accompanied the show perfectly enhanced the music. They were trippy and beautiful and with the music, kind of put you in a trance. Thom was a dancing fool and you could tell he was thoroughly enjoying every minute of the show. I saw many shows this year, and this was one of the best, even compared to the 2 Radiohead shows I saw earlier this year.
We saw Radiohead in Philadelphia in August and we saw Atoms For Peace in Santa Barbara last year so I've seen Thom in those incarnations. Radiohead was incredible, Atoms a powerhouse and Thom solo was...interesting. But if you want to get a 360 view of a great artist, he gives you that. Thom solo is not for the casual fan but if you've listened to his solo stuff and it resonates, you have to go. Aside from the show itself, the venue was fantastic. Sound was good, employees friendly. They did have the heat cranked when we arrived which was a mistake because when the full house crowd got there, it was a little warm.
I really enjoyed the Thom Yorke show. The sound was good, and the visual most enjoyable. I was a little alarmed by the line stretching around and up the block to get your tickets from will call a few minutes to 10:00pm, when the show was supposed to start at 10 sharp! But luckily there were so many people still in line at 10:00 that the show start time got pushed. Once the line got moving, it moved quickly. I know many people were grumpy about only will call tickets, but I am for anything that prevents people from buying up all the damn tickets just to resale them at ridiculous prices, that price out many fans! Thom's voices is amazing by the way.
I am so grateful that I was able to have the opportunity of watching Thom Yorke perform at the Fox Theatre in Oakland! It was truly a magical experience!! Thom Yorke is out of this world!!
This show was so amazing a nice small intimate venue they could not of been any better than they were it was sheer perfection!
Amazing concert! Thom started late, but made up for it by performing for about 2 hours. Beautiful voice, better live than on his albums. His dance moves were on point too. Also liked the venue, could get really close to the stage.
I found out that Thom Yorke was playing a solo show in L.A. just two night before the tickets went on sale, and even then I only lucked into the information and probably wouldn't have found out otherwise. I'm a big Radiohead fan, even more for the weird, experimental stuff they do, but Thom's solo album usually just goes through me. Frankly, I probably could have lived if I missed the show, but seeing Thom on his own, especially when he wasn't doing a full tour at the time, seemed interesting. What put me over the top was that he had Flea on bass. How does that happen? I thought I'd give it a shot. I lucked into getting tickets, something in a section called "BOX R", whatever that was. Well, they were tickets, so I went for it. And I got them -- a pair of tickets for a Thom Yorke show a tiny fraction of the size of a place he would normally play at. A buddy of mine, with whom I've seen Radiohead at Lollapalooza, came from Kansas just for the show. Turns out we had box seats, like the ones that presidents get shot in. The Orpheum is such a small place that we could have been in the last row and still have been closer than we'd ever been at any Radiohead show, but the box seats were right off the stage, and we happened to be in the second row of them (after assuming we could push our luck to the very limit and mistakenly thinking we were in the very front, mostly because there was no one sitting in those seats when we got there, but we ended up making friends with the people in that section. We found out that they had paid a few hundred dollars for their tickets). We could have jumped off the seats and been on the stage, we were that close (though from that angle we couldn't see the right third of the stage. I didn't even know Thom had had a guitarist the whole time). Some art-thing called Lucky Dragon opened. Probably the most obscure local band that Thom had heard, fair enough. Finally Thom's new band went on stage, including Flea, and knocked out The Eraser in its entirety. Suddenly the entire album, seeing it performed there in front of me and feeling a part of it, inside of it, it all made sense to me. Not that a live experience should be necessary to enjoying an album but it definitely opened it up to me. Thom's band were mostly studio guys and it showed but that stiffness contributed well to the sterile, sometimes airless spaces of the nooks and crannies of the album. The band included his producer, the legendary Nigel Godrich, defying some kind of record-making rule of producers playing live shows, but it makes perfect sense, in trying to recreate those soundscapes, that there couldn't have been a person brought on that could do it better than the one who helped create them in the first place. It was a high-wire experience, trying to redo live what had been done in the confines of a studio but it worked. Even with Flea, who played other instruments as well as the bass, showed amazing constraint, to the point where you wonder why he was there in the first place, if for no other reason other than just wanting to be part of the music and because he's a superhuman musician. A short break then Thom and company came back to do more stuff, including Radiohead b-side "Paperbag Writer" and some new tunes which were welcomed by the crowd (a rare feat, since they usually only want the stuff they know already. Clearly there were a lot of serious music fans in the audience, which shouldn't be a surprise since The Eraser wasn't exactly a huge hit and wouldn't really turn on any casual Radiohead fan). Thom knows how to put on a show, even when -- or maybe especially when -- he's on his own.
Saw him at Coachella 2010. He basically did this jungle/tribal remix of his whole album (The Eraser) in order from start to finish. I was buggin out. Every song was brilliantly constructed. He stole the whole show, no band even came close to his performance. Another legendary set list for the Coachella archives.
Thom Yorke is a musical and performance genius! The hypnotic drum beats with the woven in guitars and Thom's voice created an unreal moment in time.
Was great....really enjoyed the 'paperless ticket' experience....
39 shows in 9 different countries and there is nothing else like the music of Thom Yorke and Radiohead. They are best and most underrated band that is playing right now.
simply the best pure song writter out there. Driving beats, haunting vocals, complex composition...
Thom Yorke has been itching to play his solo album, The Eraser, in full, for a long time now. While wanting to perform with his original band, Radiohead, he also wanted to go venture in his own direction and create/perform from his heart. With his performance here at the Orpheum Theatre, with Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nigel Godrich, the energy and emotion exerted during the performance was a once in a lifetime experience. Playing his full solo album start to finish, other new songs, and newly released singles, it was worth every penny. From announcing the concert less than a week in advance, we were all surprised with how it all came about. Overall, this was a terrific experience and I invite everybody to go to a concert with Thom Yorke or Radiohead playing.
best show i've ever witnessed!! people will b talking about this show for years!!
The only complaint I have is that is was too short. The band is tight. They all fit together, yet each member is unique in their own special way. Thom's voice will stop you in your tracks. The percussion makes you want to move. Flea's bass...... The ballads are what got me. I don't know the names of them yet, but I couldn't move for those.
Fantastic show. The new material was great and shows a lot of promise. The musicianship was equally great and it was apparent they were having a blast doing the show/playing together (especially thom, relieved of the burdens that come playing with radiohead, arguably the most influential active band in the world). Flea was the perfect choice, mixing in a extraordinarily different energy that somehow complimented the songs .
AMAZING SHOW!
it kind of reminded me of this cd eraser that i have.
Amazing show...while the venue was mediocre seeing Thom Yorke and Flea on the same stage was unforgettable.
