Live
Atoms for peace The Roundhouse, Camden, London 25.07.2013 By David Zammitt Photography by Roy J Baron
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As I glance up from the merchandised torsos dotted around the Roundhouse bar, I start to feel old.The hairline of the average Thom Yorke fan has receded quite significantly since I first saw him and his band as a 15-year-old in 2001. The laughter lines are etched deeper, the rings around the eyes are that shade darker and the juxtaposition of the room’s middle-aged paunches with the clumsy Orwellian nonsequiturs that emblazon Radiohead’s post‘Bends’ artwork, come off, sadly, as just that bit less convincing. Make no mistake, however, for they haven’t turned up to see a tired greatest hits workout by some complacent, established act. Regardless of the pieces that make up this elite jigsaw, this is a new band, playing only their third-ever gig in the UK, and the air is charged with the promise of something fresh.That, I’m happy to say, is what we receive. Perched on the balcony at the outer reaches of stage left, my vantage affords a view of Yorke and Flea, a loan signing from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as the remarkably well-toned rock aristocracy limber up for their second of three nights at the Camden venue. All vests and three quarter length shorts, the elder statesmen look as though they’re better set for the gym than the stage as they diligently perform their pre-gig stretches. In all fairness, what I witness over the
next hour and a half looks like a fairly gruelling physical workout for our all-star dramatis personae and it’s full-throttle from the off as the band provide a much-needed spark for Yorke’s solo tinderbox, oozing energy and adding movement with their tribal polyrhythms and deep, corporeal bass grooves. The duelling percussive partnership of Joey Waronker on drums and Mauro Refosco on everything else (he wears what appears to be a playable, full body washboard at one point), in particular, helps to add meat to the flat, tinny rhythms of ‘The Eraser’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘Amok’, and opener ‘Before Your Very Eyes’ sets the tone for an evening that is built around countless colossal climaxes. Halfway through, Yorke lays down his guitar in order to free his arms for an all-out Kaoss Pad freak-out that’s plucked straight out of early ’90s acid house. Shifting from foot to foot, he looks to be having the most fun he’s had in years and I have to confer bonus points for the quality of his dancing, something which is usually, quite correctly, maligned. As the descending guitar riffs build to a wall of eerie, ‘Hail To The Thief ’-era synths, the delight of the adoring crowd is tangible.Without a pause for breath, ‘Default’, another Atoms For Peace original, is similarly incendiary, whipping the audience and, it seems the band themselves,
into a second successive frenzy. The highlight of the raucous set, however, is ‘Harrowdown Hill’, another song that is elevated from the impressive to the sublime by Yorke’s colleagues. As it climaxes, their leader is handed his guitar by a member of the crew, adding a satisfyingly sharp layer of distortion to an already thick brew. Even their bassist, seemingly in a perpetual state of animation, is visibly more pumped, clenching his fist as his new band’s exhilarating rush of dance-dystopia hits the spot with an explosive catharsis. Elsewhere, fan favourite ‘Ingenue’ grows legs with a swagger that’s lacking on ‘Amok’, while the first of two encores includes a gorgeous, fractured rendition of Yorke’s 1998 UNKLE collaboration ‘Rabbit In Your Headlights’, featuring a Flea cameo on spoken-word duties. The night’s sole Radiohead cover comes in the shape of ‘Amnesiac’-era B-side ‘Paperbag Writer’, again excelling in its transition from laptop to 5-piece as it staggers forward through Flea’s carnal, syncopated bass. As Yorke dedicates it to Radiohead’s own rhythm section of Phil Selway and Colin Greenwood, seated somewhere in the crowd, it’s hard not to compare, and I can say without a slither of hype, that tonight’s set trumps Radiohead’s 2012 gigs hands down.