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New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
John Aizlewood's rating
Reader rating
Description: The iconoclastic Oxford art-rock five-piece with latest album, In Rainbows.
Website: www.fielddayfestivals.com
Email: info@fielddayfestivals.com
No compromises: Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood ignored musical boundaries
These are the oddest of times for Radiohead, the oddest of bands. Allowing their public to choose how much to pay to download their most recent album, In Rainbows, devalued not only that record but, by uncaring osmosis, their back catalogue too, especially when a messy divorce from their label EMI ended with a Best Of; the cherry picking the band had always feared. They disowned it (although not, presumably, its royalties) but the damage has been done.
As if struggling to pass the time, they have announced they have gone carbon-friendly on their world tour, hence recycling points around the arena where plastic cups could be returned in exchange for 10p. Radiohead's eco-friendly contribution was to travel with just 12 guitars, sell reusable water bottles for £15 and pen an apocalyptic announcement on their website claiming - not entirely correctly - that there are no parking spaces in the immediate vicinity of Victoria Park and ordering the audience to take public transport. Whether any member of Radiohead travelled to their first proper British show since 2006 on public transport remains unclear, but I know what I'd bet my private jet on.
Yet for a band seemingly running out of options, they remain full of ideas and they remain so popular that not even In Rainbow's disastrous marketing could stop it reaching No 1 on both sides of the Atlantic. Seemingly desperate to reclaim In Rainbows as an album worth paying for, they played nine of its 10 tracks. Just to make sure any casual fans spluttered into their £15 water bottles, of Radiohead's seven Top 10 singles, only the percussive There There was aired. For one of the biggest bands in the world, playing a prestige, sell-out, outdoor London show, this was stubbornness in excelsis, even before the rubbish split screens which, perhaps deliberately, rendered each member interchangeable and, in a rare utterance, singer Thom Yorke cheerily denouncing his lyrics as 'f***ing nonsense' before The Tourist.
This was some of the most uncompromising music ever to reach and delight a mainstream audience, the point at which high art meets mass market. For all the sombre beauty of How To Disappear Completely and the rock assault of Just and Jigsaw Falling Into Place, they offered a thrillingly challenging show to an audience willing to be thrilled and challenged.
From the opening 15 Step, which nodded to freeform jazz, krautrock, medieval madrigals and punk, to the closing Idioteque which re-invented Radiohead as Roni Size-esque drum and bass, via the threatening Everything In Its Right Place (which began with chants of Free Tibet, while Tibetan flags were visible on stage) and the punchdrunk 3am slur of You And Whose Army, the quintet not so much pushed boundaries for two hours as ignored them.
Is this the very best and bravest world-conquering British pop music can offer? Yes it is.
*Radiohead will play Victoria park again tonight
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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Radiohead write some good pop songs, but are still incapable of producing an album that's consistently good all the way through. They're not innovators and their music is not groundbreaking - it's well-written rock music and nothing more, there are 1000s and 1000s of better albums.
- James, London
I live next to Victoria Park and this event was not publicised to the local residents of Hackney.
The event was noisy and went on until 10.45 pm, this should never have been allowed mid week we all work and get up early in the morning, the drunken fans left and pulled over a fence on a building site and pulled flowers out of the gardens.
Tower hamlets have allowed another money making event in the Park, they never do free daytime events for the kids it is all about booze and loud music.
I would put money on it that the people who attended this event are not local residents
Now I am told I have to endure this again tonight.
Please tell Radiohead to hold their concerts in Hyde Park or Green Park not in Victoria Park !!! RADIOHEAD ARE RUBBISH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- Sally Smith, london,united kingdom
