ive been having a minor internal struggle with the song selections ive been making. on the one end, im trying to bring some new tracks to all of you that you may not have heard before. but on the other hand, since im not that cool that i have an endless supply of these (and since youve probably heard most of them before anyway), ive been trying to find a balance between new stuff and other stuff that i like even though many have heard it before. i felt the need to post a radiohead song to round out my musical background, but couldnt think of the perfect one, until i remembered this live version of “like spinning plates” from many moons ago. reasons for awesomeness other than the obvious are that i was at the show where they first played it, and i found it online a few days later and learned to play it on piano myself.

it was a midsummers night back in 2002. at least i think it was 2002. we had driven about 4 hours to the blossom music center near columbus, ohio for our first taste of radiohead, in all of their live glory. the show did not disappoint as we waited for the group to return from backstage for the encores. mr yorke sat down at the piano and issued us a challenge of sorts, something to the tune of “if you can name that tune within the first 30 seconds, youre doing pretty well.” he also informed us that they had never performed this song live, so that narrowed down the list quite a bit, but who could even keep track at that point? there were a thousand reasons not to recognize the song right away. first, it was a track that seemed to sort of fly under the radar. second, it was musically ambiguous. you could hear the chords, but only in the context of some looping effect played in reverse. the live piano version of the song gave a whole new appreciation to the overlooked and complicated album version. the best part? we actually sort of get a glimpse into the real lyrics of the song, which are played in reverse on the studio track and pretty incomprehensible.

radiohead – like spinning plates(live)

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