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Radiohead At The O2: A Return That Refused To Beg For Meaning
Eight years is a long time in music—long enough for a band to become a relic, a nostalgia act trading on past glories. But Radiohead’s return to the O2 Arena in London was no victory lap; it was a statement of continued evolution, a setlist that felt less like a greatest hits compilation and more like a living, breathing document of a band still fiercely committed to the art of the present.Stepping onto that stage, they carried the weight of a legacy built on 'OK Computer' and 'Kid A', yet they seemed determined to have a conversation with their older material rather than simply recite it. The opening chords of 'Daydreaming' from 2016's 'A Moon Shaped Pool' set the tone—atmospheric, melancholic, and unapologetically modern.This wasn't a band trying to remind a stadium who they were; it was a five-piece showing 20,000 people exactly who they've become. They wove newer, more textured tracks seamlessly with reimagined classics, treating 'Everything in Its Right Place' not as a sacred text but as a jumping-off point for a sprawling, jazz-inflected outro that Thom Yorke murmured over like a séance.The rhythm section of Phil Selway and Colin Greenwood provided an impossibly tight yet fluid backbone, while Jonny Greenwood, hunched over an array of guitars and modular synths, conjured soundscapes that were at once chaotic and meticulously controlled. It was a performance that demanded active listening, refusing to pander to the casual fan hoping to hear 'Creep' shouted back at them.Instead, the crowd was treated to a deep cut like 'The Daily Mail', its bitter political commentary feeling unnervingly prescient, and a thunderous, reworked version of 'Myxomatosis' that landed with the force of a sledgehammer. This deliberate curation spoke to a band confident in its ongoing narrative, one that prioritizes artistic integrity over easy applause.They have always been architects of unease, and this O2 show proved that their primary subject is no longer just millennial anxiety but a more profound, existential dread that transcends generations. By the time they closed the main set with the haunting 'True Love Waits', a song that took decades to find its official form, the message was clear: Radiohead is not a museum exhibit. They are a working band, still in the studio of the world, composing the next unsettling chapter of their story, and we are merely privileged witnesses to their relentless, brilliant progress.
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