In Rain Blows, Part 2

And now, the eagerly awaited (eyeroll) conclusion of "In Rain Blows"!

After what seemed a way-too-lengthy wait, Radiohead finally came out. They opened with “All I Need” from In Rainbows, which was expected since that’s what they had opened with at all of the previous shows. I have to say that despite the rain I got a charge out of finally seeing the band live. I was honestly unsure whether I would be able to stay for the whole show both because of the weather and because my friends were trapped in a car. After a while I did manage to send a text and found out that somehow my friends had gotten up towards the stage under the covered area. It took me a while to respond because I didn’t hear my phone ring. By the time I responded everyone was in the car because of the cold. I knew then that I wouldn’t stay for the whole show. I was trying to decide when a good time to leave would be.

I enjoyed the performance. The sound was pretty good considering the conditions, Thom’s voice was amazing, and it was great trying to guess what they were going to play next. Although there are some Radiohead songs that I like more than others, I like most of their stuff so much that every song was a treat. They could play for hours without a clunker in the bunch. I was particularly hoping to hear “Paranoid Android” and “Karma Police”. I didn’t have high hopes of hearing the latter since they hadn’t played it on any of the previous tour stops. They did play “Paranoid Android”, and some of the other highlights for me were “Pyramid Song”, “Myxomatosis”, “Idioteque”, “Just”, “Lucky”, and “Everything In Its Right Place”. I even had an epiphany in the pouring rain. After hearing everyone sing “Rain down, rain down, come on rain down on me…” during PA, and “I jumped in the river and what did I see” during “Pyramid Song” I realized that there are lots of Radiohead songs with water imagery. Besides those two songs you’ve also got “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, “Lucky”, “How To Disappear Completely”, “Optimistic”, “In Limbo”, “Like Spinning Plates”, “I Might Be Wrong”, “2+2=5”, “Sit Down, Stand Up”, “Sail To The Moon”, “Where I End And You Begin”, and “Reckoner”. Not to mention you have to have rain to have a rainbow. Wow, deep.

In what seemed like no time at all, the main set was over and after a short break the first encore started. The first encore song was “Like Spinning Plates”, which I was totally jazzed to hear. Around this time I also noticed that not only were my shoes and the bottom half of my jeans wet, but pretty much my whole pants were soaked through. That goddamned rain did not slack off one bit the whole time I was out there. Not. one. bit. At this time I also started noticing that there was a good chance that I was going to get quite cold too. The wind would kick up pretty strong every so often, and finally I started shivering. I was preparing to make my exit when “Karma Police” started up. I knew that would be a perfect place to end for me. I was going to sit there for the whole thing, but I started shivering. I mean like serious shivering. I got up and started moving for the parking lot. I was going to stand right by the steps until the song was over, but I couldn’t even make it through. Towards the end of the song I started down the steps. I was pretty surprised that by the time I made it to the bottom I really couldn’t hear the music anymore. As I left the venue one of the people working there chirped “Have a nice evening!” What the F? I’m drenched to the bone, I’m freezing my ass off, I look homeless, and this person is acting like we’re in paradise? WTF?!

I made it to the car, but it was pretty clear from all of the cars waiting to leave that we wouldn’t be going too far anytime soon. I was prepared to enter a car with an upset toddler, but Faith seemed perfectly happy to be sitting there watching the end of “Surf’s Up”. It was nice and warm in the car, but my soaked pants meant that I would have to suffer until we could get home. It was a slow go out of the parking lot, and there seemed to be some strange routing of cars being done by the local police (including being sent over the highway we needed to get on, away from it, and then back towards it), but it didn’t seem like it took an excessive amount of time to get out of there. After reading some other accounts, I think we actually did really well time-wise. Apparently there were lots of people who couldn’t even get in to the concert to start with. It kept raining the whole way home. I couldn’t wait to get out of those damn pants. I looked at the weather radar online to see just how it was that that heavy rain kept up the whole time. There was a low pressure system that was drawing the rain bands into a spiral pattern. So even though the storm was kind of moving northeast, the center of that spiral looked to be centered pretty much right where the concert was. Joy. Manassas received something like 5 and half inches of rain that day.

I’m glad that things seemed to have ended up working out OK for Faith and Holli. I’m so glad that Faith got to “wock out”. I was pretty satisfied to see that I only missed 5 songs (which I have now heard. Of the 5 I most wish I could have been there for “National Anthem”, and “House of Cards” seems like a really weird choice for a closer). One interesting note is that they played every single song from “In Rainbows” (as well as 2 of the songs from the bonus disc)! Another interesting note is that apparently one can still smoke a joint in monsoon weather. I have no idea how they did it, but they did. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to take my camera out there in that weather. Too bad too, because I could have snuck in a bazooka with the lack of searching that security did.

What would I have done differently if I had a time machine? First I would have sprung for a full rain suit rather than just a poncho. Second? I would have skipped Liars and not headed for the lawn until Radiohead was about to start. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. But I still had a good time overall. I’m sure I’ll never forget this experience. I think those conditions will be one of those things that especially make me remember this concert. I’m sure the tale will grow over the years – “Well in my day we had to sit through a foot of rain to see Radiohead, dammit! You kids don’t know how easy you have it these days.”

The next stop for Radiohead-A-Palooza 2008 is Saturday night in Houston…

Setlist:
01. All I Need
02. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
03. Lucky
04. 15 Step
05. Nude
06. Pyramid Song
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
8. Myxomatosis
09. Idioteque
10. Faust Arp
11. Videotape
12. Paranoid Android
13. Just
14. Reckoner
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. Bangers and Mash
17. Bodysnatchers

encore 1:
18. Like Spinning Plates
19. Optimistic
20. Karma Police
21. Go Slowly
22. Planet Telex

encore 2:
23. Fake Plastic Trees
24. The National Anthem
25. House of Cards

Dimeadozen.org has torrents of every show on this tour so far here (St. Louis sounds really nice!)