Author: Lucy Brouwer

I’m standing outside the Prague Vystaviste with a hot dog in my hand. As I cross the car park in front of the deserted art nouveau industrial palace, I receive a text message: ppl stood up – open soon – hurry!

I speed walk through the first set of gates, past a line of empty flag poles and a block of pavilions, there are several restaurants but all the doors are locked. There’s a weird sign that says something about a “Sausagefest”, the hotdog is gone but I hardly tasted it.

Behind the glass palace are fountains, which my guide book claims are spectacular, but today they are switched off. This place is part deserted fairground and part soulless convention centre. Like Blackpool, like Birmingham, but today the sun is shining.

I recce’d the site a couple of days ago when I first arrived in Prague. My hotel, carefully chosen to be nearest the venue, is a short walk away. While I’ve been here, the stage rig has been rising from a pile of scaffolding on a dried out lawn. A Heras fence around the perimeter now prevents access without a concert ticket.

My phone beeps another text: Everyone’s standing up.

Trying not to run, I follow the path down the park side of the complex. Just before I reach the turnstiles, I stop at a small portacabin where a young crop-haired woman with a laminated pass around her neck presides over the guest list. I have a ticket bought months ago, but as this is a special occasion I’ve asked my contacts for an after show pass. I say my name to the woman and she asks who’s list it is on. The band’s, I say, smiling. For once feeling confident that it will be there. For once not having to spell out my name before it’s found on the print out. She hands me a small white envelope with the words “Aftershow x 2” written underneath my name. I lift the gummed flap, peeking inside as I walk away from the booth. A rush of satisfaction as I bury two triangular fabric stickers marked with today’s date deep in my bag.

The crowd looks denser than it did when I was here an hour ago. Then they’d been sitting on the ground on bits of card or picnic mats, or just on their coats and jumpers; now they’re all standing up facing the turnstiles, like runners poised at the starting gates of some weird horse race. This ritual started hours ago, some of these people have been here since the early hours. They have done this many times before and they know what to expect but it doesn’t lessen the tension. Part of me hates queuing, but today I know that it’s the only way to assure even the possibility of the experience I crave. Today my “support staff ” are here, friends who know what to do to get me through. They know the drill, they are prepared for the fact that I’m not going to be calm.

I’ve done this before, I know that you don’t really need to pitch up in the early hours of the morning. Some fans arrive very early, almost as a point of pride, but you can still get a pretty good spot if you start at a sensible hour. Over the years I have developed my own system, I make a deal with some of my co-queuers: I won’t start ridiculously early but I will bring supplies and guard their spots on the ground while they go for drinks or bathroom breaks. I don’t have the patience to sit for hours getting cold and anxious, so I step in as a relief queuer, rewarded with my own place. I understand some fans’ compulsion to start queuing before it gets light; maybe they feel they are earning the show by making this sacrifice. It’s a way of showing their loyalty, their love.

I reach the back of the huddle and try to find my friends who are somewhere near the front. I shout a couple of names, but they can’t hear me. I stand on tip toes. I try ringing someone’s phone but before they pick up they see me and a hand extends towards me through the throng. I take a deep breath, head down, dive in. Apologising as politely and as Englishly as I can, talking to my friends the whole time, so that everyone else can see that I’m not pushing in, rather returning to the spot I had previously occupied for several hours.

As I forge my way through the crush, I feel a swell in the already palpable excitement. Security operatives take their places at each of the half dozen turnstiles and test the barcode readers that will scan our tickets. There was a rumour that the doors would open at four o’clock. It’s almost 4 now. The atmosphere changes, people stop talking and start concentrating on the gates. Once they are open there will be no time to think. This is the moment to focus. Until now people have waited patiently, but the stress is starting to show. The lucky ones have traveled from across the world to be here. They are experienced and driven individuals, their whole day is geared to reaching their goal. The earliest of them arrived outside the venue at 4am, they waited as the weather got warmer, they held fast as fences and signs were erected around them, they dodged trucks and cherry pickers. They arrived before the venue staff, before the turnstiles were put in place and long before the tour buses even parked. We all have our own well-honed tactics for survival. We distain meals and refuse excessive liquids as these would necessitate strategic planning in order to visit the Portaloos.

I unzip my shoulder bag and tie my jumper around my waist to facilitate a quick search at the gate. People are dumping bags of picnic food, obeying some of the instructions on the detailed signs illustrating what will and will not be allowed inside. Powerful cameras are secreted in clothing, bottles and cans are being emptied or placed on the ground. It feels like someone should blow a whistle to signal the off. The security staff move as a single high-viz unit and release the turnstiles. The crowd ripples and pulls into separate lines behind each gate. Tickets are gripped in sweaty hands as we filter through one at a time, still in orderly fashion but primed to sprint as soon as we need to. I hold my bag open to be examined. The scanner beeps the barcode on my ticket and I’m through.

My friends are in front of me, already round the corner at the next gate where tickets must be shown again and wristbands applied to allow access to the magical ‘Zone 1’. I catch up with my companions and someone grabs my arm. A security guy studies my ticket as his colleague wraps a paper band around my wrist. I’m standing still for this operation, but an over eager young fellow who doesn’t want to wait his turn pushes me. Clarabelle stares him down and pulls me by the hand through to the other side of the traps.

Inside Zone 1 everyone is running the 100 metres to the barrier rail. There is already a line of people there, but it’s only one or two deep. I catch up with my friends again, they’re right in the middle, just behind a trio of fans who make it their mission to stand at the very front for every show having earned that right through traveling long distances and turning up several hours earlier than anyone else.

Breathless, excited and relieved, I find I’m in the second row in front of the stage. This will be the 100th time I’ve seen my favourite band, I’ve been doing this for nearly half my lifetime but it hasn’t got any less exhilarating.

People continue to arrive all around me, they run in from the entrance turnstiles, we watch them have their tickets scanned, their bags searched, watch them become irritable with the perceived slowness of the stewards. They push and shove a little but are on the whole polite and respectful of the queuing hierarchy. With a few places at the front still left open, there are displays of sprinting that would not be undertaken under any other circumstances. They swoop in like birds joining a roosting colony and hug each other when they land.

Carefully selected tunes test the sound system. Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up, some James Brown, some dub. I’m bursting to work out my pent up frustration, dying to dance but I know I should conserve my energy, so I sit down on the ground and stake out my territory.

I am greeted by old friends and acquaintances, some of whom I only ever see at these gigs, some of them are people whose sofas I have slept on, some of them are people who until now have only existed as a name on the internet. This part of the day has become almost as important to us as the performance. I’m jumpy and anxious, but I’m part of this strange community now and they understand what I’m feeling.

We have reached The Barrier. We will have an unfettered view, we will take the best photos and we will hang on for dear life. We will be the most completely immersed in this performance. We are all grinning.

Only another 4 hours to wait until Radiohead walk onto the stage.

It is October 22, 1992. I am 17 years old and, to be honest, I’m not enjoying it very much.

I’m in the 6th form at a draconian Catholic school in a town called Mansfield. It’s a place whose cultural life consists of a bowling alley, a dilapidated cinema and the world’s ugliest bus station. There is little else worthy of comment. I keep my head down and wait for the day when I can pass my exams and get a ticket out of there. I get through the angst ridden days by taping The Mary Whitehouse Experience off the radio, borrowing Smiths albums from the local library and trying to get my oversized black jumper to look like the one worn by The Cure’s Robert Smith.

I also have pen pals. They provide my lifeline to the outside world. One of these pen pals, Rebecca, has been sending me tapes and getting me into music beyond the compilations of the Indie Top 20 that I can get from the library. She sends me tips on the records she is buying. This week she mentioned one by a band whose name I’ve not heard before, they’re on tour with current indie faves The Frank & Walters, but by the time I read her letter we’ve missed the gig.

The band in question are being treated with suspicion by the weekly music press, that I have to order in specially at the newsagent, because they are signed to a major label. But Rebecca agrees with the positive opinion of our favourite critic Jon Homer, who is outside the cliques of King’s Reach Tower at Teletext’s music pages, and suggests that I listen for myself.

After school I go to the local Andy’s Records, whose only attraction is their large bargain bin full of vinyl singles. CDs are a bit out of my pocket money price range and besides I have nothing to play them on. I rely on the mark-downs they keep at the back of the shop when I want to hear anything I can’t hear on Fabulous One FM.

I find the mysterious and hitherto unheard Creep on sale for 99p and another 12 inch EP by the same band, reduced to 49p. I pick up a few other discs and head home.

Back in my bedroom in our small semi-detached, semi-rural house, I set up the cheap beige plastic record player that my mother has recently bought from the local supermarket. It has a very low output, but it’s lightweight, meaning my brother and I can move it from room to room easily and listen in private.

I sit on the floor, plug in my headphones, remove the EP from its sleeve, put the vinyl on the turntable and drop the flimsy tone arm on the groove. As the needle crackles, I turn the sleeve in my hands and wonder who these blokes in bad shirts and sunglasses are. The song starts with conventional bass and drum lines. The vocals come in, so far so good, and then the lyrics start to get interesting. Just as I begin asking myself if he really just said that… the guitar crashes out of nowhere and this thing that sounded like the oddest ballad I’d ever heard becomes something else entirely. Shivers up my spine. The swoop of the crescendo and that noise. And where does that voice come from?

I pick the needle up and put it back to the start, I have to listen to this again, in case I was imagining it. I play it again, I play the other tracks. I play the other EP, Drill, and then come back to Creep again. Nothing in the other songs really prepares me for it. I go to the bottom of my wardrobe where I keep a stack of music papers, and hunt through the last few to see what I had missed about this band. I hadn’t heard this on the radio. I open a spread in the NME. It begins “Thom is 5’4’’ and swears a lot” and proceeds to describe a band at odds with prevailing trends, at odds with what was expected of them, but in tune with my world view.

I wrote in my diary that night, “bought Creep. Loud and cruel and good”.

 

The early 1990s. It’s hard to imagine now, how teenagers got along without mobile phones, the internet or MP3s or how I got along without going to gigs. When every Wednesday meant a visit to the newsagents to buy the weekly music papers NME and Melody Maker and Radio One had yet to launch its Evening Session.

Occasionally Mark Goodier would play something worth listening to during his homework-hour show, but mostly it was chart-based pap, with Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You holding a vice-like grip on the number one slot for what felt like most of 1992. The John Peel show existed but it seemed too esoteric and the music too exotic for untrained ears. The kind of tunes that ended up in the Festive Fifty took a long time to filter down into even the outskirts of the mainstream.

I had yet to go to a gig, but I’d heard The Jesus & Mary Chain’s In Concert, that I’d taped off the radio, loads of times and that had convinced me that a gig was what was missing from my life.

After my epiphany moment with Creep, I also knew that Radiohead were the band I wanted to see. Encouraged by my pen pal Rebecca, who was a bit older than me and who had been to a few gigs before, I decided that the next time they played locally I would try to see them.

It was the middle of January 1993 when I spotted an advert in the back pages for Radiohead’s next single, Anyone Can Play Guitar. There was a list of headline tour dates and a PO Box number to write to for “more information”.

 

A lot of bands had started to feature these in their promotional material if you sent in your address you would usually receive a card in the post tipping you off about their next release.

They announced that they were playing in Nottingham on February 15th. I just had to work out how I was going to get there. I wouldn’t be allowed to go on my own. It was virtually impossible to get home from the city at that time of night – there was no night bus and Mansfield was (in 1993) the largest town in Europe without a railway station. Plus it was on a school night.

I couldn’t ask my mother for a lift because last time she’d picked us up, we’d kept her waiting for over an hour on double yellow lines while my friends and I queued up to get Rob Newman’s autograph… She was sick of being out until all hours giving my friends lifts home.

I had to persuade someone to come with me. I’d already put Creep on a tape for my school friend K, now I just had to work on her to get her interested enough to accompany me to the gig.

Why didn’t bands ever play in this dead end town? Why does being a teenager make you so powerless to do what you want? Why do parents stop you doing everything?

I was getting aggravated about these issues as I scribbled a request for information to send off to the PO BOX address on the band’s advert. I didn’t imagine anyone reading it so I let rip and I asked why I should go to such a lot of effort to see them live. I also asked if they were any good. I put it in the post and forgot all about it.

The night before the show, I had a row with my mother about how I was going to get home. In the end K reluctantly borrowed her parents’ car and agreed to drive us. It felt like a disproportionately big deal, there was a lot of discussion about where we were going to park the car and we had to meticulously plan the route before we set off. I couldn’t drive and she hated to, having only recently passed her test. I think she only did it I because I begged her.

I’d met Rebecca a couple of weeks before. We’d both gone up to Glasgow for the University Open Day. We liked the look of the place because there were at least five record shops within walking distance of the campus. We’d agreed to meet again at the gig, as she lived on the other side of Nottingham and had her own car.

I’d never been in a Student Union before. Our newly elected “Sixth Form Student Representatives” (a token effort at pupil democracy at school) had lobbied the authorities and got us NUS cards, which meant we could get in without facing an inquisition over our ages but I was still woefully under prepared. It was a cold night and I was over dressed. I had been in pubs before, with my dad on his pub quiz team, but I didn’t really know what to expect in a Student Union. Would they even let us in?

 

In the end the Trent Poly Union was just a small bar with a space where a stage should be. We didn’t even have to buy tickets. I nervously approached the chap on the door holding out my NUS card to prove that I was indeed 18, but he didn’t even look at it. We threw some change in the donation bucket and went in.

After what felt like a lot of hanging about and tuning up, the first band, who I later found out were called Blab Happy, stopped giving out flyers for their Vegan brand of DM style boots and played what sounded like it might have been about three songs. I realized we were standing too close to the speakers and could hear nothing but noise but could feel the vibrations. I was completely unprepared for how loud it was. There weren’t many people there yet and there was plenty of room so we moved back to do a bit more waiting. I took off a couple of layers of clothing and tried to stand with my coat between my feet. It didn’t occur to us to go to the bar because we didn’t have much money on us. We did a bit more waiting.

Radiohead finally came on at about 9.45pm, the place had filled up by now and there were people standing in front of us blocking the view. I couldn’t see much but every so often I glimpsed of a mop of dyed blond hair belonging to the lead singer. To his left, the angular features and basin of dark hair that comprised the guitarist sometimes came into view. I could only see the tops of their heads and the backs of the heads of the people in front of me. I was rooted to the spot due to the pile of coats and jumpers at my feet.

They both keep ducking down to batter their guitars. The singer mentioned a couple of times that they were playing songs from their album. He introduced “a lovely song called Creep” and played something I recognized.

“That was our recent single that went into the charts at 32 and went straight out again because Radio One deemed it unsuitable to be played during the day,” he said after Anyone Can Play Guitar, which by now I’d heard on evening radio a few times. They also played Prove Yourself and songs called Vegetable and Pop Is Dead (in my diary later I scribbled down the titles and wrote “V.G.”) plus three or four more.

A loud one towards the end of the set, (How Do You) was mysteriously dedicated to Robert Maxwell. I caught sight of what must have been the third guitarist and bass player and noted their centre parted hair (the kind of haircut we called a ‘Spam’ at school, usually sported by kids in Baggy trousers and bright coloured raver hooded tops). They ended their set in a hail of noise and my ears were ringing by the time they’d finished.

I asked experienced gig-goer Rebecca what she thought and she heartily approved. I got the feeling K thought it was all a bit loud and she couldn’t really hear me asking. I was just overwhelmed that I’d finally made it to a real gig. I bought a T-shirt with a surprised baby on the front.

I can’t remember the journey home, but after all the fuss that had been made earlier, there didn’t, in the end, seem to be anything difficult about it.

Pablo, Come to Florida…

Looking back on it, Radiohead’s debut album Pablo Honey didn’t have the same initial impact on me that Creep did. But albums take more time to get rooted into your system than single songs. Particularly a song with the immediacy of Creep.

I went into town after school to buy a tape of the album the day it came out. It was to remain a regular fixture in my aging Walkman for the next couple of years. It came without a lyric sheet, so throughout the early spring of 1993, I could be found huddled in the corner of the 6th form Common Room with a rosehip tea, (no milk, no fridge and no proper tea), trying to conceal my contraband headphones. I’d shuttle the tape back and forth, stopping and starting my way through a song, trying to fathom the harder to hear lyrics. I would then scrawl them on the outside of my ring binder or on spare note book pages. I’d listen to the songs all over again with new ears, finding things to identify with between A-Level classes, filling in time and filling in the UCA and PCAS university application forms.

Even after just one live show, it was obvious that Pablo Honey was only an attempt to capture what Radiohead really sounded like. On stage they had a power that they were yet to capture on record. The volume and energy in a song like Blow Out was only approximated on the album. On early listens my favourites were Vegetable and Ripcord. I came to love Thinking About You and Anyone Can Play Guitar, but Stop Whispering and You never really came close to their angry, yearning live incarnations.

Without sufficient musical knowledge of the band’s influences or even much experience of their immediate contemporaries. I couldn’t really judge the record on anything but a visceral level.

To me, it was the best thing going and I was blind to its weaknesses.

 

POP RIP.

I have to pause at this juncture and address a taboo. Bear with me, I’m going to defend Pop Is Dead…

 

It’s a good thing that YouTube doesn’t let me embed the Pop Is Dead Video. If you’ve seen it before, you won’t want to watch it again.

The thing that people didn’t seem to understand about Pop Is Dead, Radiohead’s much derided 4th single release of 1993, is that it’s actually a complicated and detailed parody. It has to be, right?

Listening to it again now, long neglected, missed off compilations and all but erased from the band’s history, it sounds… well, yes, it does sound quite bad. But I still have a soft spot for it. I can’t help but find it endearing. It was a statement that meant a lot at the time.

In 1993, British music was in the doldrums, the charts were a mess, the influential weekly music press thought Suede were the best thing since sliced bread and national radio was becoming a joke. The listening public had escaped from the clutches of production line pop stars from Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s stable, only to have Take That reach the peak of their first incarnation as favourites of the Saturday Morning TV demographic. In February, Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You had been number one since the previous November – a tortuous reign that continued well into Radiohead’s first UK headline tour, when they started performing Pop Is Dead and dedicating it to her. Worse was to come as the likes of 2 Unlimited and Meat Loaf dominated the charts, and thereby also clogged up mainstream radio playlists.

BBC Radio One had not yet gone through the revolution that was to follow the appointment of controller Matthew Bannister and it what still enduring what has come to be known as its “Smashie and Nicey” years. Harry Enfield’s parody of the over the hill DJs was too close for comfort and had become shorthand for an out dated and out of touch institution.

Record companies had for the most part cashed in on the CD boom of the late 1980s and thrived on sales of reissued albums from their back catalogues. As a new signing to EMI, certain members of Radiohead had been known to comment in interviews about how this endless repackaging of artists like Pink Floyd and The Beatles was often at the expense of newer, less established acts. Instead of nurturing new talent, major labels were already starting to sign “Development Deals” which relied on a new band recording a hit album and touring until it made a significant profit, re-paid their advance and made an impact on the balance sheets. It also often involved the band signing over the rights to their work. If the band failed to turn a profit early on, they would risk being dropped before they had chance to record a second, let alone a third album.

Radiohead, who had signed a 6 album deal with EMI, were now in a position to see the machinations of the music industry from within, and it scared them.

Pop Is Dead, much like its predecessor Anyone Can Play Guitar, can be seen as partly about its creator’s ambivalence to the position in which he now finds himself.

As a manifesto, a statement of intent, Pop Is Dead was a bold move. As a potential hit single it was wrong footed in the extreme. The label didn’t get behind it, much to Thom’s dissatisfaction (reports from the May tour around the time of its release describe his dejection about its poor chart performance) and the critics pretty much failed to get the point.

In interviews with the band (which at this point, means interviews with Thom) from the first half of 1993, you get a sense of a man with a vision of how things have to change, but who is not quite yet entirely sure how to change them.

Pop Is Dead was a product of its moment. It was a nasty and loud jolt in the band’s live set. It is a rock-out cacophony and has a piano part in the middle which for better or worse betrays the influence of middle period Queen on the band’s sound. It was supposed to be a rallying cry and it worked on me.

It also confirmed that Radiohead have a wicked and often misunderstood sense of humour.

 

Very Spinal Tap

March 24, 1993. I got home from school to find a white hand addressed envelope with an Oxford postmark on the mantelpiece. I don’t know anyone in Oxford. This isn’t from one of my regular pen pals and I’m not expecting any correspondence…

I open the envelope and take out three sheets of plain white note paper covered in blue inked scrawl. “Dear Lucy, Please come and see us on our next tour in May. Cos we’re really good live. Yes we are. Maybe.”

The return address, squashed into the top right hand corner: The Official Radiohead –and the PO Box address from the EMI adverts.

This is a letter in reply to the missive I fired off demanding “more information” and that is precisely what it contains. It tells me about writing Pop Is Dead, about how “extremely un rock and roll” the band are, and even details the university degrees of the band members. They are working on material for their next album which is almost finished “apart from the orchestral arrangements and the brass bands. Only joking. Or am I?”

It goes on to tell me that they’re planning to go to Israel where “Creep is bigger than Whitney Houston”.

The letter concludes that this is “all very Spinal Tap” and again implores me to come and see them live “because we are very nice”.

It is signed “love Thom”.

The actual Thom, not some fan club or record company flunky. A personal invitation. I have to see this band again. I sit down and re-read it a couple of times, taking it all in.

I’ve also got a fanzine in the post today, something I sent off for from in the classified adverts at the back of NME. It’s called Catharsis and has interviews with Kingmaker, The Wedding Present, Strangelove and, the reason I ordered it, Radiohead.

It has been neatly typed and photocopied, assembled by hand with photos cut from the pages of the regular press. In it Thom proclaims that he’d “like to change the face of British radio.” That the “British record industry sucks” and that they’re “shooting themselves in the foot because they don’t support new talent”.

He reiterates the points he’s made in the letter about why he’s written Pop Is Dead. “Commercial success never comes from sounding like somebody else. And the music industry’s just forgotten that as far as I can see.” Thom complains.

“Radiohead,” concludes the writer, “are Spinal Tap.”

 

 

The article in Select (Headline: Super Creep, by Andrew Collins) was the first bit of press that I saw outside of the weekly NME and MM about the band. It was also one of the first times I saw something similar to what my opinion of them at the time was in print. A lot of their early reviews fixated on their being signed to a major label (when in the eyes of the inkie hacks it was all about indie credibility) or on the photographers uncanny ability to capture Thom pulling a face during a live show.

Radiohead were too middle class, too polite or too mouthy, not sexy enough, not stylish enough, too original or not original enough, often all of these things at the same time. They had too many contradictions – a band from the Thames Valley who didn’t make shoegaze records, a band signed to a big label who released a single proclaiming Pop Is Dead. They seemed very British and yet their album was produced by luminaries of the Boston scene and mixed in the USA to sound more grungy. The press weren’t really sure where to pigeonhole them.

For my second gig ever, I feel slightly more prepared. I have a ticket and I’ve come dressed for the occasion in my band T-shirt and a floppy black cap that keeps my hair out of my face. The venue is in the same building as the last show, but this time it’s in the larger downstairs auditorium rather than just the union bar. K and I arrive at the time stated on the ticket. Through the walls of the Union we can hear someone sound checking a guitar riff. I later realised it was David Bowie’s Rebel Rebel.

Inside we go straight to a spot in the middle at the front of the stage. There are three bands on the bill; the first is Superstar, who might have been great, but I’m unfamiliar with their tunes and I’m impatient for the main act. Second on are Strangelove, a band who have briefly shown up on my radar in fanzines but I’m not yet acquainted with their melodramatic indie and they seem too thin and arty, all in all a bit too affected.

In the corner of my eye I keep seeing a very pale looking, smallish man at the side of the room near the bar. His hair is so blond I can’t help but notice that it is Thom. I want to go across and speak to him, he seems to be talking to people at the bar but if I move now I’ll lose my place at the front. The room is full by the time Radiohead take the stage at around 10pm. From the opening ‘Benz’, their superiority over the other bands is obvious.

“Wish it was the ’60s,” sings Thom. This song is not on the album and they’re starting the show with it. But they follow it with You, and most of the rest of Pablo Honey. Vegetable, Ripcord, Lurgee, Inside My Head, Prove Yourself – Is that the sound of people singing along?

Stop Whispering is a meaner song live than it is on record and when Thom screams “Fuck You” at the top of his voice at as it builds up to a finish, it should be a cringeworthy moment but somehow, in the intensity of the performance, it isn’t.

They perform Banana Co from the new EP. It’s got a quiet/loud dynamic that I really like. Thom swigs from a beer throughout the show and hands out several cans to the audience.

Thom swaps guitars between almost every song, and when he performs Creep without one he jettisons the mic stand, rolls on the floor and howls. He ends up standing on the monitors to stare into the crowd as he delivers the final long note.

Whatever it is he’s got, call it stage presence or charisma, whatever it is, he’s got a lot of it. I want to look at the rest of the band to see what they’re playing but I find that I can’t take my eyes off the front man. He’s wearing a sort of yellowish shirt with a big collar, whenever he jumps up we get a glimpse of belly button. A lone stage diver gets hurled back into the throng rather harshly by an over zealous Crusty bouncer who is at the other side of the barrier in front of us and we have to duck to avoid getting hit.

They end on Pop Is Dead – but come back on to do an encore of Blow Out. For some reason the Nottingham audience uses the football terrace chant of “You Reds” to fill the room with noise, which bewilders Thom. By the end, all three guitarists are banging their guitars with their hands, and Jonny looks like he’s hurt himself.

My ears are ringing as the hall clears.

On June 2, 1993, I get another letter from Thom.

I’d replied after the first one, and then again in a volley of excitement after the second gig. This one is addressed from the “Radiohead Helpline”.

He apologises for taking so long to reply, but they are starting to get a lot of letters now. He asks if I liked the Pop Is Dead EP – they were happy with it because they did it themselves with their live sound engineer –“being as we are complete control freaks!”

He mentions that they had spoken to Chris Thomas about producing the second album, something that had come up in his first letter. In my reply I’d pointed out that as well as working with the Sex Pistols, Chris Thomas had also worked with some pretty mainstream acts like INXS. Thom follows up with the fact that the producer had also worked with Elton John… “You don’t get much more corporate-pig-dog than that.”

He explains that they were impressed but uncertain. A big name producer would be expensive and wouldn’t necessarily understand them in the studio. It was hard to know what to do. Did I have any ideas?!

He tells me they’re off on a European tour in the next week and then onto the USA where Creep is “doing very well.” It looks like they’re going to be over there a lot for the rest of the year.

He wishes me luck with my A Levels and signs off to do some packing.

Later in the week, I celebrate school finally being out by buying a blue Pop Is Dead T-shirt in HMV. On the back are the May tour dates and the legend, “I saw pop die here.”

At the end of the week, having corralled my thoughts, I write a reply. I ask about the lyric of Pop Is Dead that I can’t seem to figure out, wish him luck with the tours and suggest that they need to find a producer who can help them get their own sound right.

Through the summer, I send for more fanzines and keep an eye out for the band in the music press. The next W.A.S.T.E. newsletter arrives, with more details of the band’s American tour and an address to write to for a new fanzine.

In August, volume one of the Pop Is Dead fanzine, the first publication devoted to Radiohead, arrives. It is made up of press clippings, a gigography, their first ever interview (as given to Oxford’s Curfew magazine), a detailed biography of the band, exclusive song lyrics and a questionnaire featuring all five members talking about their musical taste, their relationships to each other and bits of as yet unrevealed information about themselves.

Some friends of mine return from a trip to the USA with a load of music magazines for me. There are plenty of mentions of Radiohead and Creep, a couple of interviews and even some over the top adverts issued by Capitol Records. I photocopy the best bits and send them to Val in Manchester who puts together the Pop Is Dead Fanzine. I write her a letter telling her how much I love her zine.

By the end of the month Creep is at last getting some UK radio play. The rerelease is imminent. It starts to feel like something is going to happen and then another gig is announced. This time in Glasgow.

*a quote from W.A.S.T.E. newsletter #4.

29th August 1993. Radiohead cancel their appearance at the Reading Festival at the last minute, in the week before Creep is re-released as a single; it’s still a relatively rare thing for a record company to do so soon after the original release, which was only just under a year ago. The ever-suspicious British music press are dubious, but have to give in and praise the quality of the song.

Creep is starting to get a bit more airplay on BBC Radio 1. On 3rd September, the band play a gig in Glasgow, organized by Radio 1’s Evening Session as part of their Music Quest talent search.

Blur, who have just released For Tomorrow (the first single from what will be their breakthrough album, Modern Life Is Rubbish, which followed in November 1993), will be the headline act at the Barrowlands. Radiohead and a band called The Candy Ranch are the supports. The show is only announced a few days before it takes place and barring a few mentions by Steve Lamacq and Jo Whiley on their show, one small advert in the back of the NME is the only fanfare.

I have by this time, tentatively accepted a place at Glasgow University. Having persuaded my parents that I have to get used to doing things on my own, I get on a train to Scotland, with the thinly veiled excuse of going on a recce for student accommodation and visiting my cousin who already studies in the city.

I set out early to find the Barrowlands. For the first time I walk through Glasgow city centre and into the East End. There are a couple of girls already waiting by the doors and a contingent of blokes having an out of tune sing-along. There is a large Radio 1 recording van (the gig is going to be taped for The Evening Session) and a frosty windowed tour bus. I stay put in the queue for a while but it doesn’t get very busy. I look up and realise that Ed and Phil have just walked straight past me.

Inside, the Barras is a large wooden floored ballroom, it must hold at least 1000 but tonight there is plenty of room, the opening band, who are not local, perform a lacklustre set. A few more people turn up afterwards and move a bit closer to the stage, where I have already stationed myself on the barrier, slightly to the right of the centre of the stage. There is a guy next to me in a Pablo Honey T-shirt. Before the band appear, he turns to his mate and says, “Watch the guitarist, he’s fucking amazing.”

Thom and Jonny look striking in stripy blue and white tops, and I have a decent view of both of them. They open with “Benz” and Prove Yourself then to the crowd’s delight play “the one with the expletive”. They also perform two new songs, Nice Dream and Yes I Am. During Anyone Can Play Guitar, Thom lets himself be dragged into the crowd. He keeps on singing and somehow makes it back on stage with his shirt hanging off his shoulder staring into the crowd while Jonny batters his guitar.

 

After Radiohead have finished their set, Blur play songs from their forthcoming album, they’re good but they have a completely different sort of energy to Radiohead. They seem like a more straightforward band. I move back in the crowd as people start to mosh and jump about.

The next day, I am stiff all over from fighting to stay upright in the crush and once again my ears are ringing from the volume. I spend the next couple of days in Glasgow exploring the record shops.

On the Monday (September 6th) Creep is re-released. I get the gatefold 12” and the cassette single in the city centre HMV. The tape goes into my Walkman for the train journey home. I like the new B-side Yes I Am and I can hear Thom snatching his breath in the live version of Inside My Head.

I tune in my FM radio and try to listen to the Evening Session broadcasting the gig, but there are too many tunnels on the East Coast line and I can’t get a decent reception. I’ll get to hear it later on.

The only remaining working record player (the cheap beige one didn’t last long) is now at my Granny’s house. I wait until she is out and take the 12 inch and my headphones to listen to the new songs. Just when I thought that if I heard the daytime DJ Jackie Brambles play it one more time in its edited version the magic would leave me, I hear this acoustic version of Creep and it sounds like Thom’s soul and an acoustic guitar. It becomes a beautiful, wrenching thing all over again. The other live tracks are just what I want them to be and Killer Cars makes me cry.

On the Wednesday I get some post, the second issue of Pop Is Dead fanzine (hereafter referred to as PID) and I recognise the handwriting on the other envelope.

Thom has pre-empted me and written again. I open it up and find a single sheet of spiral bound notepaper. At the top, a doodle with the lyric of Pop Is Dead that I’d not been able to make out. “One final line of coke… sustains many flagging rockers at one time or another. Not me though – nasty stuff, much too eighties!”

Thom explains that they’ve been “doing alright in the US of A as you may have heard,” he even has a gold disc for half a million sales waiting for him to pick up next time he is there. “Pretty strange stuff. And not to be taken seriously”.

He wonders if MTV will be as keen to play the video for a re-recorded version of Stop Whispering they’ve made especially for the American market. He explained what happened at Reading Festival. He lost his voice. It was like a bad dream.

They’re going back to the USA to tour with Belly and then back for more shows in Europe, though he’s not sure of the dates yet. “Then at last we get to disappear and start work on the new stuff. I’ve got a working title for the second album: Ex Pat Glitterati. What do you think? hmmm”.

He signs off with another doodle and a “write soonish”.

Joy.

Over the weekend Creep makes it into the charts. I’d been expecting them to make it into the Top 20 if they were lucky , so I’m shocked to hear it at number 7, stuck between Dutch techno novelty act 2Unlimited and Billy Joel’s River of Dreams.

 

In October 1993, I finally make it to University. I move into shared accommodation in Glasgow. I’m right next to the library and within 20 minutes walk of about five record shops and within staggering distance of the student union.

I start my courses. I soon realise that I feel completely out of my depth. I’ve spent the last four years or so dreaming about all the like-minded people I will meet here, all the chances I’ll get to show off my knowledge and intellectual prowess and I realise how naïve I’ve been. I’m lonely, a bit homesick and overwhelmed by all the books I’m supposed to read.

At least my pen pal Rebecca, now only lives a couple of doors away and we get to hang out between classes and go to venues like King Tuts Wah Wah Hut for gigs.

I start to buy CDs despite the fact that I don’t yet own a CD player. My roommate has a portable one so I make tapes that I can play on my Walkman. I am able to catch up on back catalogue stuff like Nick Drake that hasn’t been available on tape. I spend a lot of time listening to Joy Division, which is indicative of my doomy mood.

On 20th October, on my way to a morning History lecture, I spot a copy of the Melody Maker under someones arm. Thom stares wistfully from the cover and RADIOHEAD is in big letters across the front.

I can’t concentrate in the lecture and go straight to the newsagent afterwards to buy two copies. There’s three full pages and the centre spread, their first lead story in a weekly paper. There are loads of pictures and an in depth report from their American tour. The Yanks have gone mad for them.

They’re getting savvy at this interview lark by now and the rest of the band all have a turn. The Greenwoods seem to enjoy teasing the reporter with a few hints of sexual ambiguity, perhaps inspired by the press obsession with Suede and their blatant Bowie-isms.

This piece raises more questions than it answers. I write to Val, editor of PID, and compare notes.

A couple of weeks later, my daily vigil for post is rewarded with a blue airmail envelope, postmarked St Louis, addressed in now familiar handwriting. It feels like a flash of light in the dark tunnel of disappointment that I’ve found myself in. The return address at the top of the letter proclaims: “Radiohead lost at sea.” All, it seems, is not entirely well.

Thom’s glad I liked Killer Cars, glad he hasn’t “lost it yet”.

I’d told him about being at the Glasgow gig in September, and he responds that it was “such a joke that so few people turned up, typical Radio 1.”

I’d asked about the song The Benz and he says “there’s a god-awful early version on a French release of Creep somewhere,” but he says the best thing is to wait for it to be released, he might even send me a demo one day, “if I can find it.”

“Reading was awful,” he writes,  telling me more about the day, and pulling out of the Festival. He lost his voice; he couldn’t even answer the phone.

I’d asked about America, but he tells me that it’s weird; he’s not really seen that much of it, “its all hotels and faces in crowds…”

He’s started reading a lot of Chomsky on the tour bus.

All the people at Capitol who’d got behind them have been fired and all anyone is interested in is Creep. The release of the special version of Stop Whispering has “gone down the tubes.” They have no illusions and are glad to have finally had a hit at home.

He says he’s been listening to the new Breeders record (Last Splash) and likes it despite it being “total Pixies abandonment”.

They are coming back to play more dates in Europe with James but he’s not keen. They’ve only taken on the tour to play bigger venues in Europe. He and Jonny will get a demo studio to keep them happy. It will mean they’ve done over 200 shows this year and “that does something to your head believe me.”

He signs off by thanking me for another nice letter.

It was great to get this letter, that it is me he’s telling this stuff to, but now I’m worried…

The James tour, which Thom has so been dreading, reaches the UK on December 1st. The first gig is at Glasgow Barrowlands. I make my way there at 3pm taking the underground into town and then walking the rest of the way, my stomach in knots. I’m not sure why I’m going so early, but I just feel like I have to be where the action is.

There are tour buses outside the venue, the way the Barras is laid out means that they have to park at the front of the venue, all the entrances and exits face onto the street. Anyone going in or out has to pass the main door.

I have a look around and plant myself in the spot by the door. A curtain is drawn on the bus; I spot Thom and make to wave. He gives me a “Who? Me?” look and then waves back and goes back to reading a book. I wander off and come back to crouch on the pavement by the door. I stay there, getting cold, letting my nerves build up, until about 5.30pm.

When Thom emerges from the bus, I step forward and force myself to speak, “Did you get my letter?” The brief conversation goes something like this:

Thom: “Would it have been recent?”

Me: “Didn’t you get home?”

Thom: “Yeah but not long enough to get mail forwarded”

Me: “I got the airmail one from Illinois. It was the fourth. Thank you.” I want to say more but I’ve just realised who I’m talking to and can’t. I drop my glove and fumble with a Creep badge that I can’t decide whether or not to wear.

Thom: a smile of recognition as he heads for the door. “Well, enjoy it.”

A little later Phil gets out of the bus and Ed arrives by taxi. I attempt to shout hello, but they aren’t looking. My friend Rebecca ( former penpal, now a student here too) arrives and joins me at the head of the queue.

When the doors open we rush up the stairs and straight for the front, we get to the barrier, slightly to the left of the centre. There were about a dozen other people similarly keen to get a good spot. Roadies test lots of guitars. LOTS of James fans, recognisable in their T-Shirts with the band’s name in large letters front and back, start to fill the room. There are lots of lads coming and going from the bar but we stay put, resolutely holding our positions.

Radiohead come on and open with “Benz”. Somehow all is not right with Thom, his playing seems slack, the sound balance isn’t very good and the crowd aren’t getting into it like they have at their previous gigs. It doesn’t feel right and Thom can tell. So can I.

They play Prove Yourself, I can feel the weight of the crowd pushing behind me but they are not getting behind the band on the stage. Surely the wonderful first notes of You, that I’ve been waiting to hear again for months, has to move them, but a chant of “James, James” goes up and it seems like they’re not prepared to give the support band a fair crack of the whip. Thom looks at his band mates and mouths, “I knew this would be a nightmare.” He tells one particularly noisy heckler to “fuck off” and gives another an exasperated one finger salute, “Well, you won’t be buying our album.”

They start Creep and some of the crowd appear to be joining in. During the long note at the end, a lighted cigarette sails over our heads and hits Thom’s leg. He moves away, leaving it to smoulder in the middle of the stage. He keeps singing, “At least I’m fucking trying…” He takes a bit more yelling but leaves the stage before the end of the song, letting the band finish without him. He returns to the stage with a guitar for Ripcord.

He starts Banana Co acoustically and is interrupted by another heckler; he stops and tries to locate the person doing the shouting. He’s still angry about being interrupted. Pop Is Dead sees some of Thom’s usual energy returning. I’m moving about on the front row as much as I can, whoever is behind me seems to think that elbowing and kneeing me in the back is fun. I’m pinned to the rail, it feels like the world is closing in and I can’t do anything about it.

A new song called Nice Dream, which I heard last time they played here, sounds beautiful and now I can make out the words. “Nice dream if you think you are strong enough”, I feel a bit choked up.

Someone calls out for Anyone Can Play Guitar and it is indeed the next song on the list. Thom’s guitar strings are breaking all over the place. By the end he has it down on the floor and is kicking sound out of it. He’s still not happy. They end on an altered version of Stop Whispering. It peters out and Thom spits out a big “Fuck you” and gestures to the back of the hall. They batter hell out of the end of the song, feeding back for all they’re worth.

I reach up and someone puts a torn setlist into my hand. The crush has eased as the James fans start going to the bar. Rebecca and I fight our way out, through the packed room to the stall at the back selling drinks. I’m shaking like I’ve been in a fight. We go downstairs to the lower level where the merchandise stall is selling Radiohead T-Shirts detailing a list of dates from their seemingly endless tour.

We come back from the toilets and survey the foyer. Colin is at one side talking to a student journalist. I’m thirsty so I go back upstairs and get a warm can of lager from the stall at the back of the room. The place has filled up now the headliners are due on. I’m angry and frustrated and quickly down the beer. Back downstairs I realise that the skinny chap over there in a small group is Jonny. Someone says, “Let’s go and see James” and they go up. About five minutes later Jonny comes back alone.

Rebecca and I sit down on the bench that runs along the wall between the door to the gents and the door to the support’s dressing room. Colin is still milling around looking lost, he finishes his can of Coke and goes into the loo. Rebecca decides we should talk to him, so when he comes back out she jumps into his path and launches in with “Great gig!” I stand next to her and try to make my brain work. She talks when she’s nervous so I just listen. Colin says, “Thom’s a bit tense.”

Colin is polite and we chat to him about all the places they have been in Europe. I manage to ask a question about what it’s been like to tour with James, he says they are all nice but they weren’t keen to play with them in the UK. He leans forward so James’ people on the T Shirt stand don’t hear, “We only wanted to do Europe with them for the big venues, but it was all the tour or nothing!”

We tell Colin about the other gigs we’ve been to and he asks us what we are studying, when Rebecca mentions that she’s doing Spanish he asks her if she’s been to Spain, as they’ve just been to Barcelona and it was lovely! I say, “See you in Manchester”, and tell him I’m going down there to meet Val. He remembers her and the fanzine from last time he met her. Then he’s off to be interviewed. Gosh! A proper conversation – wasn’t that difficult.

We go back to sitting down. I see Thom leave. Ed comes back in with what looks like chips wrapped in brown paper. Thom will have to come back this way, so I brace myself for ten minutes. When he appears again, I look over, smile and when I have his attention, I lean forward and call out “How did it go?” Suddenly he’s standing next to me explaining.

He wasn’t with it; they’ve been doing too much touring. Playing with “that lot”. I interrupt and say that it didn’t feel the same as when I’d seen them before, it was a weird crowd. But Thom says that it was more him than them and leaves it at that. I tell him I’m going to the Manchester show to meet Val. He nods and I wish him good luck and as I make sympathetic noises, he says, “I just want to be a normal human being again.” With that he departs into the dressing room.

He looked tired and sorry and real and about as good at eye contact as I am, i.e. not very. I’m a bit stunned. We go back upstairs to see if we can stand to watch James for a couple of songs. Phil is wandering around at the back, unrecognised in his red jacket. There are some obvious James fans dancing around in front of us. The whole building sweats, condensation runs down the walls. I feel like the only person in the room who isn’t enjoying the band on the stage. We go back downstairs again avoiding the rush when everyone leaves.

I’m on a high. We have chips on the way home and I’m back in my flat by 11.30pm but I can’t sleep.

I don’t get much sleep over the next few days. I’ve phoned Val for the first time to arrange meeting her in Manchester. Radiohead’s PR has tipped her off that the band will be doing a signing in a record shop on the afternoon before the gig and that James, whose hometown is Manchester, will be having a party afterwards. I hear on the radio that the next show of the tour in York is cancelled because the lead singer from James has lost his voice. I phone Val again; concerned that this will effect the GMEX show. She misunderstands me and thinks it’s Thom who’s lost his voice and perhaps he’s having a strop. We straighten out our mistake and she says that James have too much riding on their hometown gig to cancel it.

On the 4th, I get the train to Manchester in the morning and meet Val. She’s older than me, has dyed dark pink hair, glasses and a coat with a fake leopard fur collar. We walk from Piccadilly station to the main square to meet Sid and Lisa from Abuse fanzine in the nearest café, which happens to be a Spud-u-Like. We have cups of tea and then head across to find Piccadilly Records where the signing will take place at 4pm.

When we get there Thom and Ed are outside smoking. Val greets them and asks how they’re doing. “We’re cacking ourselves.” It will be the largest audience they’ve played to in the UK so far. “We’re shit scared,” says Thom.

In the window of the shop is a poster featuring EMI’s none too subtle “Do You Own Pablo Honey?” slogan.

 

The band disappear inside and we hang about so Val can smoke one of her menthol cigarettes. A small queue of people is forming inside the shop and the staff have set up a table for the band to sit around. The fanzine kids, who have all met the band before, hang back and remain cool. For the first time I feel like I have the right friends who have the knack of turning up just at the right time.

Someone has put Pablo Honey on the shop’s decks. “Turn this rubbish off” shouts Thom and there is general cheering and clapping when the music is replaced.

Thom signs his name, going over the O so it spirals off the page. They are surprised by how much vinyl people have brought along. They sign on the inside of a jacket, on a t-shirt, Thom draws a version of the Pop Is Dead cover with a spacemen and ‘Pop is Kaput’; on a girl’s note book he engraves ‘Literature rots the brain’.

I’m milling around, more interested in watching the band than in joining the queue myself until someone puts a poster in my hand and I find that I’m at the end of the line of people. I let a few in front of me, not wanting to have to leave. I put my poster on the table in front of the band, all five are sitting around the table and they sign it all at once, when I lift the poster most of the signatures are upside down.

Thom examines my CD copy of Stop Whispering, which I’ve bought mail order from the back pages of NME. “It’s an import!” he cries like he hasn’t seen one before, then eagerly grabs a felt tip pen and writes “thom e. yorke xxxxxx” on the plastic inlay, the others fit their names in around the sides and when Phil picks it up he uses the whole blank back cover for his name. I don’t manage to say anything and just about manage a thank you. I’m terrified of saying something stupid; I don’t want to show myself up or let the cool kids down.

When there are no more people left and its time for the shop to close we all head outside. The band are not far behind. Val comments that it wasn’t a bad turn out, considering she’d only seen two posters advertising it. “So,” says Thom, “Word of mouth then?”

“Yeah” says Val.

And he’s visibly happy at this, “Word of mouth’s always best!”

We’re all standing outside the shop waiting for someone, looking at the display of Radiohead stuff in the window. There is a T-Shirt with gold print and Val says that on hers the print has come off in the wash. Thom is disappointed; he says they’re going to take control of things like that. They want to sit down with the next album and decide all that sort of thing so no one gets away with shoddy quality. Like the promo sleeve for Stop Whispering, the artwork isn’t satisfactory. Colin chimes in that bands never get a say about promos. Val asks about America and Thom mentions the new T-shirt with all the dates on the back. I say that I’ve seen it and literally every month has some dates in it.

Has he been home at all? He says he called in to see his parents briefly and they told him he looked ill. “I’ve got touring wasting disease.”

He has a bag with the Capitol Records logo, only it’s been redesigned so it says, “Creep”, and he also carries an old leather satchel. It’s full of letters from fans.

They decide to walk to the venue; Lisa is friendly with Tim the Tour Manager and Val offers to show everyone the way across town. Manchester graduate Ed and Jonny plough on ahead, Phil is carrying his drumming stool. I think Colin is talking to Sid from Abuse fanzine. Val and I hang back and walk with Thom.

“Is it all limos and swimming pools now then?” she asks. They went all over America but they didn’t really see any of it.

The long and winding walk has a dream like quality for me. I feel clumsy as I tread on the back of Thom’s rubber soled shoe as I walked behind him and Val. I feel unworthy to be here. I am almost afraid to speak in case I say something stupid. We pass the big library and Val tells me it used to be really nice but it doesn’t open as much as it used to. Thom says something about “cut backs – nice building but no books”. We pass the poshest hotel in Manchester and Thom says they actually ended up staying there once and eating incredibly expensive food.

All too soon we arrive outside GMEX. Jonny is ahead of us at the top of some steps. Phil drops half of his drumming stool and it just misses my foot; I rescue it before it rolls away. He tries to put it back together so he can sit down. The others are discussing what they should do next. Tim the Tour Manager appears and says they’d better go inside. Thom turns back to ask us where we’re going next, Val motions vaguely to the nearest pub. We wish them good luck and Thom emphatically says “See you later.”

We all go to the pub across the square and try to digest the last couple of hours. We’re joined by some more people and wait for it to be time for the gig to start. I find someone with a standing ticket and swap it for my seated one.

 

Inside the cavernous GMEX I head straight for the front. Val has a seated ticket, I think it’s from the guest list. In front of me the stage is high up. I go to the right hand side so I’ll be between Thom and Jonny. There are two fans in band T-shirts with long hair next to me. They head bang and keep shouting for Jonny. This is such a different atmosphere to the Glasgow gig of the other night.

There is a confidence in the band that wasn’t there in Glasgow. Thom breathes heavily between songs, teasing the crowd. They play Benz, Prove Yourself, You, Yes I Am, Vegetable, Creep, Ripcord, Banana Co, Pop Is Dead, Inside My Head and for Anyone Can Play Guitar a battle breaks out as Ed rocks out and Thom drops his instrument to the floor and kicks it.

Inside My Head is a last minute addition after a word with Phil. Thom writhes around like a snake being charmed by Jonny’s guitar. Ed ends up doing his Pete Townsend jumping. From this angle I can even see Colin smiling and moving about.

Jonny has taken to making a big show of the opening chords of Benz; he’s all flailing arms and hair. For the ‘Kerchunk’ on Creep, he has a white light shinning on him and it looks great. Thom pushes the long notes as far as they’ll go and even if they’re tired of playing it for the umpteenth time, it still sounds impressive.

They end on Stop Whispering, it goes down to silence creating an impressive tension in such a big venue and then “Fuck you” but this time it is a call of defiance.

I hang onto the barrier to keep my feet on the floor.

When they’re done and the crowd breaks up a little, a woman taps me on the shoulder and asks if I know Val. I’m a little taken aback. She introduces herself as Caffy, the elusive PR who works for the band. “How did you know it was me?” I ask.

“Easy,” she says, “You were the only one who knew all the words.”

Eventually I find everyone back at the T-shirt stall. I buy the one with all the dates on the back, we get drinks of water and I realise how thirsty I am. Everyone else in the venue is hurrying to take their place to watch the local heroes James play their set but we are all waiting around in the foyer. We spot Colin and then Chris the Manager and his kids. Val speaks to someone she knows and I wonder what we’re supposed to do next. Val comes back with aftershow passes.

When we eventually find the party, it’s a big schmooze for James and all the various members of their families who are at the show. There’s no sign of Radiohead or any of their crew. We wait and see if anyone turns up but after a good while it’s clear that they’ve already left. We seem to have lost the Abuse fanzine kids. We go out into the corridor and see Ed leaving with several girls in his wake. We cut our losses and leave. We spend another hour at a club, but it doesn’t feel right. We get a mini cab back to Val’s flat. We watch videos and eat pizza until the early hours with too much adrenaline to even think of sleep.