Saturday at The 'Head

Darren has already posted some of his thoughts about Radiohead and my good friend Pissy Guy in a clever post that moves quickly onto more important matters so I'll take the angle of talking about the music and the average Irish concert-goer.

Over at Jim Carroll's blog I've already fallen victim to the biting wit of a couple of posters whose sarcastic comments about the lack of Creep I mistakenly took seriously. But, you see, when Iwasn't fending off the advances of Pissy Guy, I was having the quieter songs ruined by a couple of lads behind me banging on about the fact the band were just "playing all their new shite, none of the classics". I imagine they would have been happier if there had been some sort of 'text-your-request' number scrolling along the bottom of the big screen. Of course, we might well have ended up with Creep 12 times, a handful of Karma Polices and a High and Dry or two as the entire setlist. Personally, I felt disappointed not to hear Paranoid Android or Just, not because I felt I have any right to hear those songs, but simply because they have been playing them on this tour. No matter though - Idioteque worked superbly as a closer and a re-worked Planet Telex was just brilliant. Bangers and Mash was also a highlight for me, though the blank looks from the majority of the crowd showed just how few people shelled out for the In Rainbows discbox, which featured that song on a second CD.

My point really is, does the average Irsh concert-goer now think they have a divine right to a greatest hits set by whatever artist they're watching? A common complaint I heard after Bruce Springsteen's phenomenal gigs was that he didn't play Born in the USA. Well, how very dare he?

Two of my favourite concerts I attended last year were REM's live rehearsals at The Olympia, where they played all their new and unreleased songs, along with some really early, more obscure ones. They were fan's concerts and I didn't pick up on anyone saying 'Ah Jaysus, they coulda given us Losing My Religion'. Concerts are for fans and people who wnat to hear new and interesting things, and those who just want all the songs that got lots of radio-play should just invest in a greatest hits CD and look up a couple of old live clips on Youtube. It'll work out a hell of a lot cheaper than the 60-100 euro that most big acts charge for a show now.