Radiohead
I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings EP
[Capitol; 2001]
Rating: 8.0
The bright lights flashed in unison like cheap aluminum UFOs in a starless sky.
My eyes convulsed in time with the massive flashes of white, but I didn't really
mind. Somehow, Franky and I had made it to that sacred place where the lights
are far too bright and the sound is far too loud. The excitement was palpable.
Though the vast majority of the 10,000 or so people present was directly behind
me, and well outside of my field of view, I could sense the size and excitement
of the crowd around me. I turned to Franky, who stared in rapt attention at the
stage, absolutely silent.
Finally, the moment arrived. These five beings graced the stage like the gods of
old descending from Olympus, illuminated by the fiery rays of Helios' chariot.
The scene was as heavenly and beautiful as Jesus and Buddha playing handball on
Jerry Garcia's assflab. The crowd's response was as loud and forceful as a tidal
wave of live kittens. Yet, Franky remained silent. Finally, as the band prepared
for their first song, he turned his head to me, his brown eyes shiny and round
like a sheep turd soaked in glitter. Surely, he was aware that this was the
single most magical moment of his life ever. Staring awestruck at the massive
crowd behind my head, Franky opened his mouth slightly, prepared to speak. And
the words he spoke, which seemed to flow straight from his soul like a leaky
thermos of godly ambrosia, have remained with me to this day:
"Thom Yorke just got 10,000 people to pay $60 to stare at his ugly ass."
Sure enough, the audience seemed to be positively transfixed by the image of
Yorke, his lazy eye dragging two or three centimeters behind him, twitching and
wailing. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to equate the show to Radiohead's
music itself-- big rock laced with intrigue, fragility, and ugliness. On I
Might Be Wrong, a good deal of the essence of Radiohead's live show is
distilled onto an eight-track EP. And while some moments are absolutely stellar,
I Might Be Wrong is only a shadow of what a Radiohead live album could
have been.
Like most Radiohead shows, I Might Be Wrong opens with "The National
Anthem." The song's introduction, with Thom Yorke breathing in staccato over
Colin Greenwood's thunderous bassline and Jonny Greenwood's skillful manipulation
of the primitive Ondes-Martenot, is absolutely wonderful. Without a horn section,
though, the song never really develops as it does on Kid A, trailing off
without a satisfying conclusion.
"The National Anthem" is followed by "I Might Be Wrong," a song that wouldn't be
even remotely interesting in its live incarnation if not for the subtle shifts
in dynamics that grace the middle and end of the song. "Morning Bell," like "The
National Anthem," builds to a meandering ending. But it meanders with enough
grace to keep it interesting, with Ed O'Brien and Jonny Greenwood working their
trademark magic with effects-laden guitars and synthesizers.
With "Like Spinning Plates," I Might Be Wrong hits its stride. Recasting
the song as a piano ballad with eerie synthesized strings, Radiohead turned one
of Amnesiac's most cryptically brilliant tracks into something much more
emotional and accessible without being at all sappy or manipulative. With this
new version, the song's melody-- complete with the eerily, vaudevillian quality
that inhabits it during the chorus-- takes center stage, showcasing Radiohead's
songwriting virtuosity rather than their sonic adventurousness.
"Like Spinning Plates" is followed by "Idioteque" and "Everything in its Right
Place," possibly the two finest tracks from Kid A, and certainly one of
the better sections of this EP. The former succeeds in capturing the energy
Yorke channels during live interpretations of the song, whereas the latter takes
the aural experimentation of the album version one step further, with sublime
digital manipulations building electronic tapestries of sound.
After the schizophrenic meltdown of "Idioteque" and the catharsis of "Everything
in Its Right Place," an entirely unexceptional version of "Dollars and Cents" is
more than a little bit of a letdown, as it lacks both momentum and innovation.
But "Dollars and Cents" is followed by I Might Be Wrong's main attraction,
the previously unreleased "True Love Waits." An acoustic outtake from the OK
Computer era, "True Love Waits" is absolutely gorgeous. With signature
unexpected chord changes and a melody that both aches and soothes, "True Love
Waits" can hold its own against any song on OK Computer, and makes a very
welcome ending to I Might Be Wrong.
But while tracks like "Like Spinning Plates" and "True Love Waits" certainly
justify the existence of I Might Be Wrong, the EP seems purposely limited
in a way that's immensely frustrating. At only eight songs, the disc is being
sold and marketed (and priced) as a full-length album. Given the fact that so
many shows were recorded in preparation for this EP, there's absolutely no
reason that I Might Be Wrong should have been limited to eight tracks.
Similarly frustrating is the fact that every single track here, aside from "True
Love Waits," is taken from either Kid A or Amnesiac. The inclusion
of a live version of "Fake Plastic Trees," "Karma Police," or "Just" would have
rounded off the record nicely. Sadly, one can't shake the feeling that this disc
exists largely as a promotional item for Radiohead's last two albums.
The quality of the recordings and performances on I Might Be Wrong is
certainly top-notch. But Internet bootlegs-- most notably a soundboard recording
from Nijmegen, a small city in Holland-- present a better, more complete picture of the Radiohead
live experience. Still, even with better live documents available for free, it's
hard to resist an officially sanctioned live EP with a few absolutely stellar
tracks. And although I Might Be Wrong is obnoxiously incomplete, the fact
remains that Thom Yorke just got 100,000 people to spend $17.99 for eight songs.
Good for him.
-Matt LeMay, December 18th, 2001