Concert review: Radiohead rocks the Hollywood Bowl hard

By Trent Loomis
On-line Forty-Niner

HOLLYWOOD--"Optimistic," a song that mocks its own meaning fully describes Radiohead electric performance Thursday night at the sold-out Hollywood Bowl.

Led by lead singer Thom Yorke and guitarist/synth maestro, Johnny Greenwood, Radiohead shook the hills of Hollywood all the way to the Sunset strip.

No one quite knew what to expect from the somber, defeated and almost reluctant Radiohead.

They had the crowd of some 20,000 strong on their feet and rocking to the powerful, "There, There." Not a band to follow the pop-rock blueprint "There, There" featured not only Phil Selway on drums, but Greenwood and guitarist Ed O'Brien thumping away like a thousand elephants storming the venue.

Radiohead has two kinds of fans--rock fundamentalists who believe that "OK Computer" was the last great album before the synthesizers took over, and those who expect Radiohead to forge new ground and explore music's boundaries, which is evident on albums such as "Kid A" and "Amnesiac.".

Radiohead even reached back into their bag of songs to pull out "Lurgee" an obscure non-hit off of their 1992 debut album "Pablo Honey."

The climax came almost two hours into the show when they opened the second half with "Karma Police," which, along with "Creep," was possibly their most commercially popular.

Everyone was not only singing along, but belting out the lyrics in what proved to be the culmination of emotion on a night where everything seemed to be in its right place.