Live review: Thom Yorke at the Echoplex

Thom Yorke is a great dancer. This talent doesn't come up too often in his day job fronting the transcendently dispirited quintet Radiohead, where long, simmering songs tend to cover topics like wolves at one's door, impending ice ages and God being unamused by a videotape of your life.

But at Friday night's debut of his still-unnamed solo-project/ensemble at the Echoplex, he moved like Busby Berkeley at the end of days -- jerky robot twitches, stoned head-rolls, teenage sock-hop bouncing. For a man who leads what's likely to be the last rock band considered the best and best-selling at the same time, there was a sense of a previously untapped emotion in the onstage performance: Joy. For the few hundred vigilant souls at the Echoplex who managed to sneak onto Ticketweb before it exploded Friday, the feeling was absolutely mutual.

Yorke formed the new project -- with Flea, Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco -- to play out material from Yorke's 2006 glitchy laptop-pop solo debut "The Eraser" and a few new and rare tunes. Yorke billed it as a "rehearsal" onstage, but the set was a flawless performance. Though it will break the heart of everyone in the line that stretched to Echo Park Lake outside, there was standing room aplenty next to Zack de la Rocha, Kim Gordon and, we hear, Daft Punk and Rick Rubin in there.

First, it must be said that casting Flea on bass was a devilish and particularly brilliant move for this ensemble. There might not be another rock musician with a better sense of syncopation, and his drill-bit-precise computer-funk bass lines made the songs swing in a way that Radiohead rarely gets at on record.

Opening with the title track from "The Eraser," it was instantly apparent the group was up to something entirely different. Phil Selway is a fine drummer in Radiohead, but this material veered much closer to the kind of drum-and-bass and old-rave percussion that's percolated into Radiohead's arrangements but never really stood up front. Maybe I just have this sound on the brain lately, but a lot of it moved like dubstep and what you'd find at Low End Theory. "The Clock" and "Skip Divided" were revelatory this way -- the edge-of-your-seat beats with Yorke's ever-reaching falsetto and a melodica turn by Flea added up to something uncannily pretty yet completely swaggering and kinetic.

There were more handmade and intimate takes on "Eraser" tracks like "Atoms For Peace,"  with its particularly fiendish off-time bass runs, and the piano-centric "Black Swan," but the band seemed to know they worked best when playing as a kind of post-apocalyptic version of the Time. The menacing punk-funk murder ballad of "Harrowdown Hill" practically dripped blood, and when Yorke sang lines like "Did I fall or was I pushed? / Don't ask me, ask the Ministry," it felt less mournful and more like a promise to haunt the heck out of whoever did the deed.

Though the set was very much about the interplay within the new group, Radiohead obsessives had plenty to mull over. During an encore/interlude at the piano, Yorke played unreleased songs (known to the encyclopedic fansite At Ease Web as "Skirting on the Surface," "Lotus Flower," "Judge, Jury and Executioner" and "Open The Floodgates"), some of which have reportedly been in the Radiohead orbit for a few years. It's unclear if Yorke has now claimed them as solo material or was using them to fill the set out.

But Yorke's self-deprecating wisecracks about how little material the band had was totally unfounded. By the time they veered from a sprawling 7/8 workout jam into the splintery new cut "FeelingPulledApartByHorses," Yorke and his band were on their toes again, flailing like teenage garage-band savants who just discovered the physical pleasures of playing together. If you have Orpheum tickets, these shows will both confirm and upend a lot of what you think about Radiohead and Yorke as a writer-arranger. He's still nudging the outer limits of what a rock band is capable of today, but by turning to some basic, downright sexy beat-making and gleeful witch-doctor arrangements. The lines around the Orpheum this weekend will be intimidating. Make sure you're in one. 

-- August Brown

Photo courtesy radiohead.com. Video by lamofo.

Comments

[David]

Wow!!! That show sounds like it was off the charts. I'm so freakin excited about Monday night at the Orpheum! Lucky am I!!!!

[LizzPurr]

Wow. That's a lotta words.

[Echo]

We waited for 4 hours with hope and adrenaline and they finally sold us tickets for $20! Not the $750 the Craigslist greedy scalpers were asking :P

It was the most amazing, beautiful and powerful music written by this brilliant man, Thom Yorke. And played by an F'ing awesome band that he put together. Everyone there was lost in the music.

We will never forget this concert!

BTW, terrific review August, you hit it right on the musical nose =)

[lalaland]

orpheum shmorpeum, there will NEVER be anything as pivotal in the l.a. music scene as thom yorke at the echoplex . that goes up there for me with johnny cash at the pantages and the ramones at the palladium .! 3 ft from thom "dancin" york ! phenomenal! absolutely phenominal !

[DWHarper]

Can someone please explain to me the appeal of Thom Yorke. Everything I have ever heard from this guy is unbelievably infantile musically and incomprehensible lyrically. Not that I need complex music or sophisticated lyrics but there is nothing appealing about his noodling guitar, whiny voice singing songs that rarely make sense. I guess others have said the same thing about Dylan but adleast Dylan writes music that can excite and breaks ground with lyrics unsurpassed in modern popular music. Yorke does neither.

[HarrySh]

Well DWHarper, if you can't see the appeal of Yorke I don't know much about your taste in music because... man, Yorke is a genius musician. Please... just hear The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A and In Rainbows (all from Radiohead) and think he wrote all those classic songs basically by himself and is an out of this world performer.

"infantile musically and incomprehensible lyrically?" Really?! Have you ever really LISTENED Karma Police, Paranoid Android, Exit Music, Nude, Street Spirit (Fade Out), Fake Plastic Trees, Jigsaw, Reckoner, Let Down, Lucky , Idioteque, How to Disappear? Only to name a few... Or are you the type who thinks he is the "Creep" guy?

I guess you never was at a Radiohead show so you should check out one because is something more than just a show, it is an experience. People don't praise Yorke for nothing, he IS the best singer/songwritter/performer of our generation and his new "unnamed" band just comproves his uber talent.

Please, check the videos from the "rehearsal" of his new band at Echoplex and say that man doesn't have talent. Just impossible. He is out of this world.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mytraveltales

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF1qeSY0fDU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV9uBL6b6hk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4TDIwLgEq8

And these three are only a TINY example.

[Sylvan]

Read about it, pre, but I'm not a big Radiohead/Thom Yorke fan; would have went if it took no effort-and I'm sure I would have loved it and gained better respect and appreciation for him- but I live a straight line up the 2 frwy from echoplex and I'm darn proud that the guy came to play in my neighborhood, and that his fans had a great time, and that everyone now knows all the more that from Eagle Rock/Glassell Park to Echo Park through Silver Lake to Los Feliz this is the best and coolest neighborhood in the world. It's great to live, work and play in a band here! Woo-hoo; I'm psyched. lol :)

[chris]

Thom Yorke, bleh. wah wah wah, poor whiny white guy, you have it so rough, dont you? please make the world a better place by following elloit smith's example, thank you. put us out of your misery. or pick up a copy of national geographic and learn about people with real problems.

[thomyorkejapan]

koo

[bobby]

i like sylvan's comments

[Billy]

chris..

what are you even talking about? do you know anything about thom yorke? and the charity work he's done? have you even listened to any of his songs? i'm not sure where you get the idea that anything about what you said was remotely true. .. at all.

[Infernal Wedgie]

Hey chris, go back to your nickelback records and leave the discussion to the rest of us who care about music.

[anthony]

Incredibly overrated, just like Radiohead. Mediocre art-pop at it's finest. Go pick up some XTC if you want to hear good music in that vein.

[yeesus!]

Was lucky enough to see this beautiful man at the Orpheum last night. My cheeks hurt I was smiling so much. This band GETS DOWN!!!!!!!

[bestbirfdayeva]

I would like to mention that Paperbagwriter was played last night @ the Orpheum. This is a Radiohead track. One of my favorites and a beautiful surprise. Flea's bass KILLED IT!!!! THEY ALL DID!!! One of the greatest nights of my 28 years in this world. :)

[DWHarper]

OK, Harry SH, please make me comprehend the lyrics on this gem...

Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge, hes like a detuned radio
Karma police, arrest this girl, her hitler hairdo, is making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party
This is what you get, this is what you get
This is what you get, when you mess with us

Karma police, Ive given all I can, its not enough
Ive given all I can, but were still on the payroll
This is what you get, this is what you get
This is what you get, when you mess with us
And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself

For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself

I am waiting for you to make sense of this. I just took the first song on your list of "great" songs by Yorke. Like I said, incomprehensible...

[jokesonyou]

Haha this reminds of somethingawful's pitchfork satire of a radiohead review:

"Radiohead
Collectionanthropolopolisology
[ EMI Toshiba; 2004]
Rating: 10.0

Traveling through space at 293.37246 million billion miles per hour, traveling past star systems and glowing golden suns, comes Radiohead's latest offering. Discovering a new Radiohead release is like staring into the eyes of Jesus Christ and feeling the eternal stream of love and awe that flows from Him. I might be so bold as to claim that Radiohead is the Jesus Christ of music; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost combined into one small package featuring the limitless talent of Thom Yorke.

So how do I review such an inherently perfect, flawless recording? It would be unfair of me to simply state, "this CD is perfection in the literal sense of the word," as that would not give such a masterpiece the sufficient praise it deserves. Putting this disc into your stereo and listening to it is like having the saints pee liquid gold into your ears. A beautiful, flowing, melodic wall of sound embraces you like the mother you never had because she was a filthy whore.

Track 1, "Ale A Gator," opens up with a lush field of melodic vibraphones and marimbas trumpeting the arrival of Thom York's genius. A glassy string section envelopes the sound field and reminds me of the time I was doing heroin in the middle of Canterbury Park. Finally Yorke's angelic voice sweeps in, crooning the following incomprehensibly intelligent lyrics:

Ale A Gator, the world is your at your feet
With a gaping mouth and jagged teeth
Your eyes remind me of capitalism (the telephone is ringing)
And your love is love like loving eyes, I will be there for you

Ale A Gator
Ale A Gator
Dragging through your personal hell
Ale A Gator
Ale A Gator
Encrusted jewels and a kissing kill across your gentle forehead

Time for sleep
Time for sleep
Time for sleep
Time for sleep
Gentle Ale A Gator

Such raw, unrelenting beauty caressed my soul like fingertips running across my spine. The power, the genius, the immeasurable talent which escapes from this porous CD can easily overwhelm you without proper preparation. Teams of NASA scientists could spend hundreds of years attempting to discover the meaning behind Thom's words, but nobody is intelligent enough to properly do so except Thom himself and his alter-ego, Jesus Christ. Perhaps some day they will both do a duet together and we can finally see who's truly the Son of God.

As for tracks 2-9, I was unable to listen to them as I was so blown away by Radiohead's sheer power that I beat my CD player into pieces with a rake so it would never be defiled by another, inferior compact disc. I shall review the rest of the album once my dad flies back from the Hamptons and buys me a new SUV to play it in."

[joe momma]

I would bet my right ovary that DWHarper looks like the comic book guy on the Simpsons.

[ernset]

I am in San Antonio Tx, the only reason I would move to LA is for stuff like this. Austin is only one hour north, i HOpe they come down here, this seems wicked.

[HarrySh]

DWHarper, maybe you are the type who can't understand metaphors uh? Probably you need those pop lyrics who tell everything so clear and leaves nothing to imaginantion? You shoud had taken 'easier' lyrics like "Let Down" or "The Tourist", or even "Lucky" then. If that's what you like, well, whatever, you will never GET Thom Yorke.

BTW, Karma Police was written as a joke, because every time one of the member's was acting weird the others would say the 'Karma Police" would come and get them. Thom is talking about his own weirdness there and how the "Karma Police" will come and get him.

Yorke's ideas aren't always clear, black and white. That's why he is such the ultimate artist, he reaches millions of people with abstract comcepts and different music, he doesn't feel the need to appeal every time, to everyone, you can bet he is happy with the ones who "get him".

[sellmemore]

ah... could it sell a barbie?
catch it on the rebound
echo.... !!!! if only such silence can make it so pure