Radiohead - LCCC - 29/06/08 by James Ellaby

Radiohead find themselves in a slightly odd place at the moment. Despite the often wilfullly unmainstream directions that they've taken their music in over the last ten years, they don't seem to have shed many fans when it comes to selling tickets for live shows. Which is, of course, a good thing, but the issue with this is that when they play large open-air gigs like they have on this current tour, they end up with a crowd split between wanting to hear the new material and wanting more stadium rock anthems that they can sing along to.

This contradiction between the band Radiohead are now and the band some of their fanbase still want them to be was summed up in a way by the two support acts. Openers MGMT were the perfect band for an open-air gig on a sunny afternoon, with their psychedelic jams helping blow away the clouds and seemingly winning over a fair share of the crowd. Main support Bat For Lashes was an entirely different prospect though, with guitars replaced by a harp and a violin, hardly stadium-fodder instruments, and her very intimate and complex songs weren't particularly suited to the occasion, though she still put in an excellent performance.

Like her material, a lot of the music Radiohead have released in the last ten years sounds like it should be performed in smaller venues than Lancashire County Cricket Club, with In Rainbows probably the most delicate and personal record they've done so far. Only last week they released a video album on iTunes of the band playing songs from it in a basement, and they sound a lot more natural in that setting than in front of a crowd of many thousands at a sunny cricket stadium. And for that reason alone, the atmosphere at this gig fell flat too many times, despite the quality of what was being done up on stage.

The stage-show was certainly impressive, with a load of lighting strips hanging from above that were used to great effect towards the end of the show, particularly as darkness descended, with the typically quirky camera angles of the band on the big screen were rarely less than interesting. Unfortunately for large swathes of the crowd, the setlist often seemed less than thrilling. When Radiohead opened their tour in London last week, they came in for criticism from reviewers and fans alike for avoiding most of their better-known material for less 'big gig' friendly tracks from their recent albums.

Since then, they seem to have taken that on board, and have introduced some hits, with this show seeing the likes of Fake Plastic Trees, Just, No Surprises, Karma Police and Paranoid Android all get an airing, and they were certainly the most popular songs. That isn't to say that the newer tracks weren't popular, because there were some very loud cheers for In Rainbows material like Jigsaw Falling Into Place, All I Need, Nude and Videotape. However, there were definitely moments where the momentum of the gig was lost and the rapt attention of the crowd faded away, with some slight uncomfortably quiet gaps between songs.

Radiohead didn't play a bad show by any means, though. Thom Yorke was an electrifying presence on stage, doing his jerky dancing at every opportunity, and coming across like a indie rock version of Michael Jackson. He even told a joke at one point, complete with a 'badum-tish' drum beat at the end. And when the show caught fire, like on The National Anthem, it was fantastic, while third encore Lucky was the perfect end to a very good show. But even then it was hard to shake the feeling that all of this would have gone down that much better at a smaller venue than the wide open spaces of the LCCC. Maybe next time...