9-11-2001

Today is the Anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, but because this is a music-related blog this ofcourse has something to do with music.

On 9-11-2001 I saw Radiohead in Berlin for the first (and so far only) time live.

I didn't listen to Radiohead in their early and big days, "Creep" was and is a song that does not appeal to me and even "OK Computer" did not spark my interest.

But when "Kid A" was released I was totally stunned. A mix of rock, jazz and electronica I had never heard before. This and "Amnesiac" are still on my Top10 list of records "for the island" and I made all my music-producing-friends at that time listen to both records and most of them were amazed as I was, although none of them listened to any (Indy-)Rock aswell.

I haven't yet listened to "Hail to the Thief" or "Eraser" because I read it's more like the old "Radiohead"-Records. Maybe one day when I am really open for them I will give it a shot.

So, on the morning of 9-11 we prepared to catch a train when an hour before we had to go to the station someone called me up and told me to switch the TV on which I did and so I learned about the attacks that had taken place.
We went to Berlin anyway and the concert was very strange ... the crowd was very quiet, there was not much applause and Thom Yorke started to talk about his feelings after a few songs and it was all a very strange mood. In a way this was the most sad and the most intense concert I ever visited in my whole life.

The next day there was a lot of Fuzz in the Berlin' Newspapers because as it turned out all public events had been cancelled except for some Ice-Skating-Event and the Radiohead-Gig and so the papers started accusing Radiohead for partying after such horrible events, which was as far from the truth as I can imagine.

Also, out of sheer luck two weeks later I found an FTP-Site somewhere on the net which had a bootleg of this exact concert, but somehow I never listened to it more than once because I would like to keep the memory of this evening as the feeling I had without having a sharp reproduction of the music.