Thom Yorke at Zermatt Unplugged 2022
I am just back from Zermatt, Switzerland, where I saw Thom Yorke performing at the Zermatt Unplugged festival. Here's how it went.
Thom Yorke/Radiohead and me
I realised that, even though I'm a huge Radiohead fan, I actually haven't shared much on this blog about this, apart from this blog post which lists the Radiohead gigs I've been to (I did it mostly to keep track for myself, and found it useful as sometimes you can't remember everything).
Moving forward, I'll probably write a bit more about music in general and
Radiohead in particular, but TL;DR: I have been listening to Radiohead since OK
Computer came out, and saw them in concert a lot of times in different
countries.
I also saw Thom Yorke (Radiohead's leader) a few times, including the awesome
Latitude 2009 and Big Chill 2010 festivals in the UK.
Zermatt Unplugged
Covid and concerts
Of course like anyone else, Covid has put a stop on concerts - the last concerts I've been to were The Chemical Brothers (October 2018) and... Thom Yorke performing solo in Paris in July 2019.
So to say I was missing gigs is clearly an understatement.
Actually Zermatt is not the first gig since Covid for me, since I've seen Vitalic in Paris mid-March (and I should write about this soon®).
Zermatt
As the name suggests, the festival is all about unplugged/acoustic music.
It happens over 4 days (this year it was from April 5 to 9), with one or two
major artists per day, and a lot of smaller groups performing on the smaller
stages.
The weekend
My main interest was Thom Yorke's part, but traveling to Zermatt is quite a trip from where I live (at least 8 hours of train), with 4 changes), so I decided to arrive the day before the show, and leave 2 days after - basically arriving on Friday, and leaving on Monday.
I was with a friend of mine, Guillaume, who's also a huge Radiohead/Thom Yorke fan, and his wife.
We enjoyed Swiss Cheese fondue, and also went for a very nice downhill hiking the day after the show, so the weekend was really great!
Of course, I took advantage of being in the Alps to go for some trail running and enjoy a bit of elevation, since it's really flat where I live.
And on the day of the show, we were joined by Valérie (who we see quite often at Radiohead's concerts) and Agnès, a friend of her.
The Show
Pre-show
Upon arriving and getting your wristband, you can spend time in the "Taste Village", which is an outdoor area where you have foods and drinks, along with some scenes where musicians are performing.
It is very nice to hang around - the setting is temporary and built only for the festival. Actually, the Tasting Village is built where they usually have their ice rink, since I spotted this sign, which is clearly for Ice Hockey:
The only bad thing was that the weather was really cold and cloudy, it was -5 degrees Celsius with no sun to warm you a bit, so staying outside was really tough.
As soon as we could enter the small Circus tent marquee, we did it to be in a warm place.
Then they opened the gate and we were allowed in the main circus
tent marquee, where the show would happen.
As it was a seating gig, there was no need to run to be at the barrier - which
seemed a bit weird to Guillaume and me, who are used to run to grab a good spot
:)
Guillaume and his wife were seating in row 3, and I was just behind in raw 4 - so clearly very close to the stage - see pica:
We waited for about an hour - that's because we chose to enter as soon as they opened the gates. Then finally the show began!
Thom
And here we are, after 3 years with no show: Thom Yorke standing a few meters from us, in a very intimate setup (there were around 2000 seats).
Thom seemed to be genuinely happy to be there - I know, it's always a bit hard to tell, as let's say he's not the most communicative artist out there - but still you could feel he was happy.
Thom used only the piano and a few acoustic guitars (I counted 3 but I might be wrong).
The show
I won't be talking about each and every song, as you can find the setlist e.g. on Setlist.fm, but will rather focus on the songs which were "special" to me.
- Everything in Its Right Place: I have a special feeling about this song, as for a long time, it was the last song of a Radiohead's gig, so you knew the gig was about to finish, but also the live version was really great with Johnny contributing a lot to it.
- Suspirium: I love this song since the album Suspiria was released - I find Thom's voice coupled with the piano to be just perfect, it gives me the chills every single time :)
- These Are My Twisted Words: I was amazed that Thom managed to perform it live, since it involves 2 guitars (Johnny and Thom). And hearing it instantly sent me back to Poznan in 2009, where I have a vivid memory of Thom and Johnny performing it.
- The Present Tense: another song bringing back a lot of memories - I saw it first at the 2009 Latitude Festival, where Thom was playing it solo, along with plenty of other new songs.
- Rabbit in Your Headlights: wow, probably the song I wasn't expecting Thom to play. I still listen a lot to the original album from Unkle, so having Thom playing it was just a welcome gift.
- Exit music (For a Film): this song is already played in an "acoustic" manner - but again, it brings back memories of how I discovered Radiohead with OK Computer, and also the Romeo+Juliet movie from 1996, with Claire Danes and Leonardi DiCaprio.
- Weird Fishes/Arpeggi: awesome performance, and the crowd even "helped" Thom by singing the part which is usually done by Ed :)
Some videos
In additions to the pictures above, I have also recorded some videos, which you can find here:
- Suspirium (Twitter)
- I might be wrong (Twitter)
- The Present Tense (Twitter((For some reason, this one got a ton of likes and retweets)
- Videotape (Twitter)
- Rabbit in your headlights (Youtube)
Wrap Up
WHAT. A. SHOW. !!!
2 hours, 23 songs, 2 encore, a very intimate venue, a respectful crowd, it's
definitely one of the best gigs I've been to - really glad I could make it! :)
Tags: Music