Radiohead, August 25 at the Hollywood Bowl

How can you justify seeing a band more than, say, twice in one tour? If they put on a different show every night. And if that band is Radiohead. Musicians can get by playing the same set every night: play hits, do a few new songs to indulge your musical abilities and so people can go to the restroom, encore with the really big stuff, and the crowd, who probably didn't see last night's show in some other town, will be happy. some bands change it up, maybe almost completely, to challenge themselves, to make it interesting, to give something to the fans they know are seeing multiple shows on the tour, for whatever reason. Radiohead is one of those kinds of bands and that's what makes them great to see more than once. There are some stand-bys – most of the new album, “Fake Plastic Trees” (or maybe that's just because I saw them more than once in California) – but you can't really always count on the same set night after night. After six albums (and all sorts of extra material), they have enough crowd-pleasing songs that, paced correctly, can keep the more casual fans going while they also throw in some more obscure stuff, to please the hardcore (and traveling) fans. At this show they played a bit more than the two hours they gave at the festivals recently, they threw in a track from the In Rainbows bonus disc (“Go Slowly”) and Thom performed a song by himself from his solo album (“Cymbal Crash”). The only consistent thing is that you never know what they're going to do. Which, along with their catalog of amazing songs and solid musicianship, make them one of the best live bands going right now. That's three shows in the less than a month and each performance just keeps getting better. Hmm, maybe I should see them more often.

Radiohead's set-list:
"Reckoner"
"Optimistic"
"There There"
"15 Step"
"All I Need"
"Pyramid Song"
"Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
"The Gloaming"
"Videotape"
"Talk Show Host"
"Faust Arp"
"Tell Me Why" (Neil Young cover)
"No Surprises"
"Jigsaw Falling Into Place"
"The Bends"
"The National Anthem"
"Nude"
"Bodysnatchers"

"House Of Cards"
"Planet Telex"
"Go Slowly"
"Fake Plastic Trees"
"True Love Waits"
"Everything In Its Right Place"

"Cymbal Rush"
"Karma Police"
"Idioteque"