The New Cue #546 November 12: Forty-eight hours with Radiohead in Madrid
"Are Radiohead huddle people?"
Good morning,
Welcome to a special midweek edition. It’s Niall here. I went to see the final two gigs of Radiohead’s four-show Madrid run last week, had an incredible weekend and thought it would be a dereliction of TNC duty not to write about it. My wife Jade also took some photos that are so good I actually started laughing when she showed me, so I’ve included some of them too. She’s wasted in teaching, where taking photos is a bit more frowned upon.
This midweek boon is for paying TNC subscribers only, though. You freeloaders already got a Monday edition for zilch. If we make this one free too, who knows what we’ll be handing over next? Here, take the car keys. It’s fine, I wasn’t planning on eating that sandwich, have it. Yes, those pillows are memory-foam, sleep tight. See how quickly things can escalate? Instead, you’ll have to be one of the core crew who pay £5 a month for full access to this one. You can become a ledge here:
Enjoy the edition, especially Jade’s photos. See you on Friday,
Ted and Niall
The Return Of Radiohead – 48 Hours In Madrid
From the top: it’s Friday night, a very drizzly evening in Madrid. As 17,000-capacity enormodomes go, the city’s Movistar Arena sits inconspicuously as you approach by taxi, heading down Calle de Goya in the Salamanca district. Even the fact that the car pulls up outside the heaving Bar Los Torreznos is no reason to suggest you are literally standing right outside the venue because everywhere in Madrid is heaving, the pavements squeezing-by room only. Since arriving on a British Airways flight a few hours ago, one where around 50% of the passengers were Radiohead fans, I have come to the conclusion that Madrid might well be the busiest city I’ve ever been to.
Look up above Los Torreznos, though, and there it is, the venue where Radiohead have chosen to launch their first tour in seven years. After the first two shows and a day off, tonight kicks off the third of four gigs here. The rest of the band’s tour, taking in four dates in Bologna beginning this Friday, London, Copenhagen and then Berlin, will follow the same two shows, a day off, two more schedule.
Inside the arena, the crowd are already oohing and aahing around the huge circular construction in the middle of the floor, the house lights dimly-lit as an array of rectangular screens flash intermittently in time with the minimalist techno instrumentals playing through the venue’s PA. This circular tower is Radiohead’s stage for their first-ever in-the-round performances.
Not that, with all the screens currently closing off any view of the stage, you can see right now but it’s for that reason there’s no support bands on this tour – there’s nowhere for them to play. Instead, as we will find out during their set, this is a stage that has been perfectly engineered to host Radiohead and Radiohead only. Philip Selway’s drumkit sits raised in the middle of it all and Ed O’Brien and his arsenal of effects pedals are located on the side facing yours truly. Thom Yorke, Jonny and Colin Greenwood are all afforded a bit more move-around room. Yorke, especially, will make the most of being able to perform to the crowd from all sides.
But we’ll get to that. First off, here they come, the quintet making their way to the stage as they never have before. The only way to get there, you see, is through the crowd, so flanked by bodyguards and a makeshift line of security men armed with torches, Radiohead arrive with a bit of a rock star swagger, because that is the only way to make this walk. It cannot be done meekly, or like you’ve accidentally just walked into a room of 17,000 people waiting for you. It has to be done with a swagger, and so that is what they do.
