Perhaps to stir interest for next year's planned tour, Radiohead have been making the television circuit over the past few days. Saturday night saw them playing a two-song set for Saturday Night Live's season premiere, while Tuesday night saw them performing four songs on Comedy Central's faux news show The Colbert Report. But did songs from this year's album The King of Limbs make a smooth transition to television? As a Radiohead fan myself, I'm leaping at the opportunity to discuss the band's sets at length.
The answer is yes, though one performance was far superior to the other.
Saturday's appearance on SNL wasn't the groundbreaking performance I thought it would be, mostly due to awful sound mixing. Most notably, bassist Colin Greenwood could barely be heard. Other issues from the performance involved Thom Yorke's vocals, which seemed a little shaky during their first song, "Lotus Flower" (perhaps he was a little distracted by the bad mixing). Things improved drastically with "Staircase," though, and the band exited the SNL stage after a fairly satisfying performance.
When the band appeared on The Colbert Report on Tuesday, they seemed much more comfortable musically. They began the set on a highly positive note, with the already beloved B-side "The Daily Mail," a slow building rock song that, at under three minutes, was perfect for the time constraints of television.
Interestingly, they followed "The Daily Mail" with the much less accessible "Bloom." If you've heard the studio version of the song, you can guess how difficult it can be to perform live. But, as they did earlier this year with their From the Basement special, the band pulled it off flawlessly. And, thankfully, we could hearColin Greenwood actually playing the bass.
Their third song, "Little By Little," was approached differently from other live versions of the song, with focus being more on the guitar parts rather than the rhythm. That configuration didn't quite hold up when you compare it to From the Basement, though casual listeners will likely be unable to spot any main differences.
Then, suprisingly, the band ended the set with a rousing version of "The National Anthem." Unlike all five songs mentioned above, "The National Anthem" is over ten years old -- it initially appeared on the groundbreaking studio album Kid A. A rock song, probably intended to appease the younger skewing Colbert audiences, "The National Anthem" was the perfect way to end the hourlong special, though unfortunately the tail part of the song was cut off by the credits. Not to worry, though, because the song will be available onThe Colbert Report's website on Wednesday, along with a live track that was recorded but didn't make it into the final cut of the episode.
