Radiohead at the Greek Theatre

Radiohead at Greek Theatre, Berkeley
Originally uploaded by mtbouchard.

Yesterday was splendid.
A camping trip scheduled this weekend got postponed at the last minute which meant I could try and see Radiohead at the Greek Theatre. Seeing them in London and then Coachella had been near religious experiences and I was a bit concerned about diluting the memories of those shows. Also the tickets on craigslist were going for around $150, which was just too steep.
I decided to post to craigslist and ask for a bit over the face value to cover the inconvinience of having to meet up with me. One hour later, BEHOLD, a recent UCB grad named Cat called me up offering her spare ticket! YES! It was so cool to see that idealism is still alive.
Turns out she was meeting her friends at Jupiter in Berkeley as well, so my friend Jon and I hoped in my car and headed over to Berkeley with Jon’s roommate Lisa to follow later.

It was no problem finding Cat at Jupiter and I thanked her again for being so cool. Jon and I then headed upstairs for some pizza and beer. After a ‘goodly’ amount of beer, we headed over to the show, though since Jon decided not to by a ticket, he headed up to listen behind the theatre.

Most of the stone benches were full by the time I arrived, but getting on to the main floor was actually not a big problem. While being careful not to be rude to anyone, I was able to manoeuver to within 20 feet of the stage!

The next 2 hours were blissful. The opening band was a quirky SF band featuring a short asian girl that sand in Japanese and had a strange obsession with Bunnys. Then just before dusk Radiohead came on stage and the audience literally convulsed by their presence - suddenly I was 15 feet from the stage.

The light show was great. The sound amazing. People were mostly cool. Two hours and three encores later they finished, as the fog came rolling into the theatre. It was good.