Concert review: Atoms for Peace at the Aragon
The shaggy haired singer bounced, shimmied and vibrated around the stage of the Aragon on Saturday in the first of two sold-out concerts, transforming the haunted, anxiety-drenched songs on his 2006 solo album, “The Eraser,” into pulsing, hot-blooded dance workouts with his new quintet, Atoms for Peace.
The transformation was not unlike the one that took place in 2001 in Grant Park, when Radiohead turned the claustrophobic tunes on its “Kid A” album into expansive outdoor anthems.
With the bassist Flea (moonlighting from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) bobbing like a blue-green-haired rubber ball next to him, Yorke embodied the bolder rhythmic approach as if to defy the dire observations in his lyrics and his reputation as a self-serious artist. Yorke doesn't get this animated at Radiohead shows, but by channeling Bez of the Happy Mondays, he brought "The Eraser" to life in a way that didn't seem possible.
The excellent band helped his cause. Joey Waronker played skittering, slippery patterns on drums, while Mauro Refosco added layers of syncopation on various percussion nick-knacks, including a Brazilian bow. Nigel Godrich weaved glitchy computer and keyboard textures through the rhythmic web, creating a futuristic dance music that bridged techno, electro-funk and world music. The rhythms didn’t pound so much as undulate, complementing Yorke’s airy vocal melodies.
Like Yorke, Flea at times simply let his body do the talking, as if his limbs were channeling electricity. But when he played his bass, he did so with authority, pushing it to the foreground of the mixes. On “Skip Divided,” he added a droning Eastern melody on melodica that accentuated the song’s lurking sense of dread.
The concert opened with nine songs in a row from “The Eraser,” the title song opening as a cool piano nocturne before being enveloped in a furnace of guitars. “Harrowdown Hill” dropped down to a plaintive vocal refrain, then roared back to life. “And “Cymbal Rush” built a fierce momentum, then cracked wide open with a Flea bass solo and Yorke’s frantic, elfin jig.
For the encore of the 85-minute show, the singer stood or sat relatively still to play a handful of fragile solo songs on guitar and piano, including a rapturously received version of Radiohead’s “Everything in its Right Place.” Then he slipped into his metaphorical go-go boots again and the band returned to rev things up. The percussionists went nuts on “Hollow Earth” and Yorke got busy heeding the song’s advice: “throwing firecrackers and dancing.”
Postscript: Given the rough time the Aragon's dicey (to downright abysmal) sound quality got last week from Spoon's Britt Daniel, the sound for Atoms for Peace wasn't bad at all. Clearly the Aragon poses a lot of challenges to a band trying to deal with the cavernous acoustics, but a competent sound engineer can help mightily. Despite the complexity of Atoms for Peace's music, the nuances of the instrumentation were audible and Yorke's vocals came through clearly.
greg@gregkot.com
Atoms for Peace set list Saturday at the Aragon:
1 “The Eraser”
2 “Analyse”
3 “The Clock”
4 “Black Swan”
5 “Skip Divided”
6 “Atoms for Peace”
7 “And it Rained All Night”
8 “Harrowdown Hill”
9 “Cymbal Rush”
Encore
10 “A Walk Down the Staircase” (also known as “Let Me Take Control” or “Chris Hodge”) (Yorke solo)
11 "I Froze Up" (unreleased “Kid A”-era Radiohead song) (Yorke solo)
12 “Everything in its Right Place” (Yorke solo)
13 “Paperbag Writer”
14 “Judge. Jury. Executioner.”
15 “Hollow Earth”
16 “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses”
Thought it was a phenomenal show. Could not have impressed me more. I loved the album Eraser, and thought the conversion to full band live was great. They also managed to make the Aragon actually seem a bit intimate. Only Thom Yorke could pull that off...
Posted by: Brian | April 11, 2010 at 11:00 AM
a good sound caresser is definitely needed for the Aragon. I've seen/heard the best and the worst of the Aragon, sound wise, over the years
Posted by: marco esquandolas | April 11, 2010 at 11:49 AM
What a feat to translate The Eraser into such an awesome live experience. I felt the percussion really carried it. I was wondering what about the Brazilian bow, thanks. And I felt like they had another song to play, it ended kind of abruptly.
Posted by: Mike | April 11, 2010 at 08:51 PM
Well said Greg. The show was a perfect rock show. I had to go both nights, and was glad I did. The second night the encore included Airbag and Like Spinning Plates
Posted by: Jeremy | April 12, 2010 at 08:06 AM
This concert was really boring, Not a rock show. Terrible chemistry, I never would think to leave a concert early, but did. The eraser was a very slow album. I want my money back! I did get the whole dancing thing.
Posted by: dan | April 12, 2010 at 09:44 AM
I've seen better. The bulk of the crowd looked like the kind of folks who go to one or two concerts a year, so no wonder so many people think it was "great."
Posted by: Noel | April 12, 2010 at 12:29 PM
I think you naysayers were the wankers standing on the staircase. The chemistry was great and this was the best sound I have heard out of the Aragon. New songs are awesome, also.
Posted by: Jeremy | April 12, 2010 at 02:13 PM
We've seen Thom's elfin dance before with his other band when he's performed The Gloaming and Ideoteque. I thought the percussionists and Flea gave new meaning to songs from The Eraser. I'm wondering why he didn't do this project closer to the release of The Eraser, since it's been almost 4 years. I'm also wondering whether the last 4 songs will appear on an upcoming Atoms for Peace release (he mentioned something about September but I couldn't hear exactly) and what that will do to Radiohead's next CD, which they were rumored to be working on before the Haiti benefit and Thom's tour.
Posted by: bill | April 12, 2010 at 04:01 PM
sounds like there was a HUGE difference between the saturday and the sunday show. we went Sat., and although the sound was not a disaster like at spoon, we still weren't impressed. also, saturday's crowd was talkative, and for a large part disinterested in my opinion. actually, downright rude. halfway through the second half of the set, people started leaving in droves...perhaps because it wasn't a radiohead show? one of the few shows i walked out from in a bad mood.
Posted by: Gretchen | April 12, 2010 at 06:37 PM
i went sunday and thought it was amazing. it was the closest i'll ever get to seeing a band like Can. lots of polyrhythm and texture which is a nice change of pace from most bands live shows...
Posted by: j | April 13, 2010 at 07:56 AM
Jeremy: Are you the drunk guy who accosted me at the end of the show and demanded to know my opinion? Well, I'll tell you what I told him. I thought it was okay. I like Yorke's solo album much more than I like some Radiohead albums, so my ambivalence about the show isn't because I expected a Radiohead show. I didn't have any expectations, in fact. I can't stand Flea--if I had a band and Flea owned the last bass on Earth and it would only emit sound if HE played it, then my band would have no bass--and I frankly didn't think his playing was that great. But the long and short of it for me is this: this is bedsit music. It doesn't translate in a gigantic room like the Aragon. I think a lot of folks who believed they saw great chemistry were tricked by Flea's idiotic dancing, Yorke's faux-sexy wriggling, and the memories they have of listening to the albums. The show was dull, the chemistry was nonexistent, and Yorke's music--often highly experimental and non-melodic--is not a no-brainer for an arena-type show. It made only slightly more sense than having a DJ (who was quite good) as an opener when his sound was inevitably lost in the Aragon. I went straight home afterwards and listened to The Eraser and tried to forget about the bore of a show.
Posted by: Noel | April 13, 2010 at 11:57 AM
j: I see bands like Can on a regular basis at venues like the Empty Bottle. Start digging into the listings and scouring music-review sites and you'll find a wealth of music like this that you dig, and you won't have to wait until Yorke comes around again nor will you have to endure a gigantic room where you can't hear anything.
Posted by: Noel | April 13, 2010 at 11:59 AM
Does anyone know where i can download this show?
Posted by: mike | April 14, 2010 at 11:26 PM
The bow is called a bidingbao, im not sure on the spelling but that's what brazilians call it
Posted by: Chris | April 16, 2010 at 08:12 AM
Sound was abysmal and the bands "chemistry" was like trying to mix oil and water, it dosen't work.
Posted by: Joshua Cole | April 25, 2010 at 10:03 PM