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Originality is surely the greatest deficiency in
music today, and Asian Dub Foundation are here to
let Earls Court know where it's all been hiding.
In layman's terms, picture the Panjabi MC jamming with
the late great Rage Against The Machine. The hard-line
political message is conveyed though a mix of Bhangra
beats, dub bass and infectious guitar licks, creating
a wall of noise that the indie audience isn't quite
sure what to do with.
Blowback is a perfect example of their sound,
dedicated with seething fury to "Bush and his fellow
terrorists" with a dub groove so low that one's teeth
start to rattle. Fortress Europe tells the "other side
of the asylum seeker's story" with the audience even
managing to shout along during the rousing chant: "Keep bangin' on the walls of Fortress Europe!"
Vocalists leave the stage for more instrumental
acrobatics, while drummer and percussionists have
their work cut out, to produce a blizzard of intricate
rhythms. Returning in rebel headscarves for Enemy Of
The Enemy, the PA hums with blasts of swirling
chaos. The scratching, eerie sound climaxes with a
lead guitar lick that drops into a drum and bass track
so wild, it would give Roni Size a hernia.
Closing with War Cry, dedicated to all the world's
anti-Capitalists, Asian Dub Foundation then utter the last
line I ever thought possible to hear at a Radiohead
concert: "Where all the jungle-ists at?" And
despite their utter confusion and somewhat bemusement
at the novel group before them, the majority of the crowd seems to be won over by War Cry, with random outbursts
of jumping and dancing throughout.
After half an hour of music through the sound system
that can only be described as the soundtrack to a
nightmare, the sultans of the strange take to the
stage in dim lights, performing a weird, techno-fringed
number, The Gloaming, before tearing into the brilliant
title track form their latest album. Hail to The Thief
has elements of Muse and The Sex Pistols, and shows Thom
Yorke at his most cheesed off for years.
The funky, grinding riff of Myxomatosis proves a favorite
throughout the sold-out venue, with a following jam
that would have been right at home on a Beck album or
even better on a Quentin Tarantino soundtrack. But Thom and his boys are way too "anti-cool" for that, eh?
Bizare and tuneless piano and techno numbers populate
the next 20 minutes, while the band unleash their own
brand of "originality" on the audience. You can't help
but feel that, amongst the irony of the vocal which runs
something like, "I'll take the rats and the children... C'mon kids... C'mon kids," that it is in fact Mr Yorke and his not so merry men who have "stolen" the children and their taste buds
with the experimentation of recent albums.
Still, however hypnotic the powers of his pipe, there is no
simply no denying that Fake Plastic Trees, Just, and
Paranoid Android hark back to a time when this band
were quite simply, untouchable. If Paranoid Android is
the best song they have ever written, then tonight is
without a doubt the finest performance of it, searing
from jangly intro to the insanely manic break with
unsurpassed excellence.
With encore numbers including a clap-along version of
Kid A, Knives out, and a superb rendition of Karma
Police, one thing is clear: Radiohead can write
amazing songs and rock them like no one else when the
material is right. However, if they keep producing
their recently adopted blend of Fake Plastic electronica, then they run the risk of their
popularity Creep-ing away.
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