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TORONTO - With its lead singer's solo-debut hitting the streets in just over a month, and new material not due from the collective until next year, Radiohead found itself in quite a spot last night.
Having last toured these parts supporting "Hail To The Thief" in 2003, music's favourite melancholic rockers could have used their extensive back-catalogue to hastily cobble together a live, best-of package that'd keep fans going until 2007.
But as the drum-heavy new track "15 Step" announced four songs into last night's set, and the baby blue, polo-clad Thom Yorke verbally confirmed later on, Radiohead's current North American trek is about celebrating the old (the good vintage kind for a change), while paving way for the new.
Only moments before, the early evening air out front of the Hummingbird Centre was electric. Scalpers were fighting a losing battle, still trying to quench the thirst of the dozens of fans who optimistically showed up trying to score a ticket to the sold-out show. But by half past eight, the Oxfordshire quintet seemed unphased by the din on Front Street, striding onstage in a wash of colour.
Gurgly radio feedback statically accompanying the band's entrance, Yorke's spidery frame was plastered across the stage's 10 video screens as he uttered, "Come on, Come on/ You think you drive me crazy, well," from 2001's "You And Whose Army?"
Grinning ear-to-ear, Yorke looked gamely at lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood before launching into "The National Anthem." Briefly turning his back on the now frenzied audience, the gangly frontman thrashed himself around, amidst swirly animations. He even plucked a few notes using his teeth.
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Suggesting the band didn't have a fixed set list, Yorke then plunked himself behind an off-centered keyboard, ushering in the operatic "Morning Bell" from 2000's "Kid A."
After "15 Step," presumably one of the tracks from "LP7" - the reported name for their seventh release, which they are recording with Mark "Spike" Stent - the band breezed through several other new numbers including the menacing, piano-laced, "Videotape," and the ass-shaking, "Bodysnatchers," which includes the lines, "I have no idea what I am talking about/ I am trapped in this body and can't get out."
Shyly shrugging off requests eagerly being lobbed from the audience, along with the occasional, "You're fucking sexy," Yorke introduced "There There" with a sly grin. "You might know this one," he said, as Greenwood and guitarist, Ed O'Brien, assumed their positions behind secondary drum kits that provided the song's tribal rhythms.
A few songs later, bathed in a neon-green light, Yorke wiggled and shook as Phil Selway's drums pronounced "The Gloaming," and with the crowd on its feet, the energetic frontman used the song's energetic momentum to launch "Bangers 'n Mash," a new frantic rocker that featured Yorke crouched behind his own miniature drum kit spitting lyrics like, "When I go down/ I'm taking you down."
Laughing as yet another female fan declared her love for him, Yorke flubbed the opening lines to "Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)" (AKA "Nude"). But recovering nicely, the sweat-drenched singer was Sade-like when he issued the bruising, "And now that you found it, it's gone."
Adopting a game show host-like persona, the singer continued to play with his audience, flipping his microphone back and forth during the "I don't know why/ I feel so tongue tied" bit from "Myxomatosis," while later, on "Idioteque," Yorke looked spastic as he sang, "Women and children first/ And children first/ And children."
Cheers for Greenwood now ringing through the hall, the band ended their main set on a quiet note, unearthing "Kid A's" haunting gem - "How To Disappear Completely."
Since their reputation for multiple encores is no big secret, the boys, who at this point were having a grand old time, inched back into the spotlight, Greenwood's muscular guitar opening the valve on "Airbag."
Coated in a shimmering, starry haze (courtesy of the disco ball hidden behind Selway), Yorke uncorked the brooding "Pyramid Song," before a dizzying, tomato-red light show helped greet "Lucky."
Leaving the stage for the second time, Yorke and company bounded back for their final encore - the breezy "4 Minute Warning," which featured O'Brien on acoustic guitar, and the surprising, "Everything In Its Right Place."
His fist pumping the air, Yorke thanked the crowd for "listening to so many of the new songs."
The thunderous applause he got in return was answer enough.