It was damp and misty after a lot of rain that day, the amps were on the fritz and there was a palpable tension in the electric air. Radiohead’s headlining set on the Pyramid stage has gone done in music history as one of the best sets played at the seminal festival. Thom Yorke’s voice is raw and powerful, and his performance only gets more legendary the more he gets annoyed at the apparent technical problems the band are facing with their instruments. He confessed after that he almost walked off stage. But thank the gods of music he didn’t.
Song after song is just an incredible playlist, made all the better by the fact they interpret the songs for playing live. They don’t sound note for note how the highly polished albums do. In fact they hit an awful lot of bum notes and mess up the tempo often. No one cares, because the energy of this band and especially Yorke bounces off the hungry audience to magical effect. Live music at its absolute zenith!
In ’97 my daughter was not yet one year old. I had played The Bends to death during the pregnancy and now I had gone back to university as a mature student, OK Computer was the ubiquitous album I listened to almost every day. I had chosen to live in halls, even at the age of 24, because I never did it first time around. With my first maintenance grant I went out and bought a CD stereo player and some decent headphones for my room – knowing I would be spending many nights in there alone and would need some tunes to get me through.
I remember every note and lyric of every song. Never has an album and a band felt more ME. Drunken nights down the student union with Jon and whoever else, singing the best lyrics at the moon! I will never forget that energy. It is amazing to go back and watch this gig a full 25 years later and still appreciating how good this band was (is) and just how incredible the songs are. 25 years though?! That’s weird.
At time of writing, the full set of Radiohead, Glastonbury ’97 is available on BBC iPlayer.
Rating: 9.5/10
The Wasteland 