Category: Radiohead

Wow, seems like everyone around Radiohead is starting a blog these days. Radiohead’s live technician, Plank, is setting up a blog which should be live May 1. Right now there is a small posting on his site which says:

This small posting is on this page temporarily, hopefully there will be a blog page up and running by about 1st May, which will be for guitar stuff, tech stuff, radiohead bits and pieces, woodwork, electronics and other random stuff!! Also hope to have a tech help / discussion thing going, will try to answer questions about radiohead guitar stuff but very busy at present with tour preparation. Here is pic of Thoms tele custom on the bench ready to be routed for tele deluxe pickup, this is needed as original bridge pickup wildly different from humbucker in front, it will now be a good sub for Tele1. open pic in new window for more detail. Hope to get more guitar pictures and info going as we get started on tour….. Next week will be v.busy as we move into the last week before packing down and heading for Copenhagen. Starting Monday 9am moving and repairing flightcases, buying spares before rehearsal starts at 11, not forgetting to put Tele2 back together !!

If you scroll down, you can see a picture of a guitar that was similar to a one Plank built for Ed that was stolen in 1995 while opening up for Soul Asylum in Denver. They’re still hoping that it can be retrieved along with the other equipment stolen.

Colin has posted some new pictures up from the band’s rehearsal over at Dead Air Space.
Meanwhile, audio engineer Graham has posted to his MySpace blog with the latest from the rehearsals:
So we are all back in the rehearsal room together again after a weekend of recharging our batteries! Usual rounds of tea punctuating the 10 old songs of the day.
After the first few days of rehearsals last week I realised that back in New York a couple of weeks ago when I was starting programming the, very new to me, Digidesign desk that there were various parameters which I hadnt considered. At a point when a majority of the information required for me to mix their live show was well and truly stored, (on the desk, on my laptop, on a memory stick and on a on line server,I believe in backing up!) I made the descion to reconfigure my system. It was just a case of copying and pasting, the sort of thing we all have to do all the time!
Thankfully when the boys arrived to play some tunes today no one knew the difference, long live the digital age!
By the way..,as I have had many messages regarding this, Im the guy who provides the sound for the band members themselves, I live on stage, the sound you all hear in the audience is the work of my friend and colleague Jim. He has become an expert with the Digidesign desks and its use of, during the recent Nine Inch Nails tour, and was without a doubt a huge contributing factor in my decision to use one myself. The best thing for me is during these rehearsals he is standing about 10 feet away from me (during a show he is normally a small figure in the distance!) so if I need any sort of advice all I need to do is convince him to remove his ear defenders (hidden beneath those are his in ear monitors!) and he knows the answers. He had a lot to do with the software update I am using at present.
The old songs done, we moved on to the new material, probably the most difficult time for all the technical crew during the rehearsal period. There are times when the band swap instruments, develop sampling routines (everything they do on show days is live! Not like some bands who use backing tracks) so when the day is finished Im ready for a sit down, and a beer! Up to 6 hours of wearing my in ear monitors a day is hard work (normally on show days its only 3 hours or so a day, including the sound check) tomorrow the last batch of old material and then all new songs, and sometime during the week a rehearsal with Thom and Jonny, with a vastly cut down crew for the occasion, for their appearance at the Friends of the Earth charity performance next week.
Graham.

Add this one to the rumor list:
Radiohead will be performing at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, CA on June 29 and 30. Stay tuned…
(thanks to Marylin)

Hey Chicago fans, mark down Saturday, May 6 as one of the most important days of the year. Tickets for both the June 19th and 20th Radiohead shows at the Auditorium Theatre will go on sale on this day at 10:00 AM at Ticketmaster.
(thanks to Aaron)
UPDATE 2:55 PM PT: TicketMaster has removed the Chicago show from their website. We’re still confident that tickets will go on sale on May 6th at 10:00 AM and will update you if something changes.
(thanks to Eric)

What a fantastic find sent in to us by radiocoocooo. Graham, Radiohead’s audio engineer is keeping a daily blog on his MySpace about Radiohead’s tour rehearsals. He only has two posts so far, but it looks promising.

Today we had an old songs day! The band have decided that everyday we will cover 10 old songs first, Ive been supplied with CDs with more than 40 songs they propose to perform on this tour and then with the remaining time do some work on their new material. So in some ways it was much easier for me, everything suddenly became much more relative. As a monitor engineer I always have to deal with the artists parameters, for example, today they all wanted to use their wedge mixes instead of in ears, which was good because on stage they use a combination of the two. So again it was a mad mix day, with a great result!
Jonny made us all stop work for a while with his crazy samples, in fact we had to stop to wipe our tears from our eyes, how can you possibly turn a voice into the sound of ducks quacking! The boys are in fantastic form, absolutely dieing to get back doing live shows; the overall atmosphere has been great until something goes badly wrong. Technology has the great ability to stop doing what it is supposed to. Thom has a new set of in ear moulds, only used for 2 days, suddenly one side stops working, a hold up while for me to change the cable, and panic phone calls to the USA to get more supplies. So we finish the, again successful rehearsal, the boys go home and there is another few hours work getting everything ready for thier next appearance tomorrow. Id still rather do this than have a proper job any day!

Read more here.

It was reported earlier that San Francisco radio station LIVE 105 (who coincidentally is often credited for breaking Radiohead in the United States by airing the “Creep” import first in 1992) announced that Radiohead would be performing two shows at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre in June. LIVE 105 has responded to this by saying, “No, we did not. Nothing is official.”
While it is most likely true that Radiohead will be performing two dates in Berkeley, we are still waiting confirmation.
(thanks to Thomas)