First, let me begin by saying that I am a huge Radiohead fan. Without any reservation, I will make and defend the claim that they are the greatest band since The Beatles; one hundred years from now, music critics will be citing their work and influence. They are by far my favorite musical artist, and I follow their work very closely. I’ve become quite the historian and connoisseur of Radiohead, to an extent that somewhat resembles an obsession, knowing far more about the music, history, and current news of Radiohead than the average casual fan.
So naturally, I wanted to see them in their only performance in all of Southern California (outside of Coachella). However, attempts to buy tickets for the show were fruitless, as tickets sold out within seconds, both on Radiohead’s webpage and ticketmaster. Literally - seconds. And because the tickets were paperless/electronic, scalping was not possible, and so purchasing tickets at an exorbitant markup on ebay (as I have done in the past) was not an option. I conceded defeat and bitterly accepted the conclusion that I was to miss Radiohead’s first tour since I became a fan of them.However, a glimmer of hope came a few months ago.
Sometime late in 2011 I met a man who is a pilot for Virgin Atlantic Airlines. He resides in England and occasionally flies from London to LA and back, staying at a hotel near where I live during his layover. My Pasadena friends and I came to know this man during his brief and irregular visits. One night, while we were takin’ a piss at the pub (to phrase it in the pilot’s charmingly British vernacular), it was revealed that he lives in Oxford, the city where Radiohead are from, and where four out of the five band members still reside. As I do when I meet anyone who has lived in Oxford, I asked him if he knows Radiohead.
It is indeed a small world, after all.
Not only does he know Phil Selway, the drummer of Radiohead, he’s good friends with him, grew up with him, went to school with him, and they continue to socialize today. After expressing my disappointment over not being able to see them play on their current tour, the pilot coolly assured me that he would talk to his friend Phil Selway about the matter, and would see what he could do.
Several months passed where I dubiously held on to the idea that a miracle was possible and that I would get into the show. I held on to a modicum of hope that it was possible that some guy I hardly knew who claimed to know Phil Selway, could possibly be able to convince Phil Selway to somehow spend the time and energy to get a ticket for an unknown third party who is neither famous nor important (that being me).
A couple of weeks before the date of the show, my communications with the pilot about this possibility went from nebulous promises to claims that getting tickets was likely. And then from there to concrete promises and enthusiastic certainty. On April 2nd, ten days before the concert, I met with the pilot in person the night he arrived from London, and was told that without doubt, I would be getting into the show on Phil Selway’s guest list.
Being a skeptic to the extent that I appear to be bitterly pessimistic to others, I tend to use probability and Occam’s Razor to interpret everything, including events in my life. At that point, I knew that the pilot was sincere, but I didn’t know if he was genuine, which are two different things. Most importantly, I had no way of empirically verifying the truth of what he was saying.
The idea of me getting into a sold out Radiohead show, in LA, and on the band’s guest list seemed absurdly improbable and implausible. And so both Occam’s Razor and my probability calculation led me to doubt. I refused to make any concrete plans, as it would have been an embarrassment and a complete waste of time and money to go all the way out to Santa Barbara, just to show up and find out that I’m not on the guest list.
However, after several discussions with friends and several email exchanges with the pilot (who was back in Oxford), I slowly became convinced enough to take a leap of faith and go out to Santa Barbara. One friend of mine poignantly pointed out that a cost-benefit-risk analysis should be compelling enough for me to go: after all, it would be worse to be on the guest list and not go, than to go and not be on the guest list.
So I found someone to go to the show with. We left Thursday afternoon with neither tickets nor any sort of confirmation. We had nothing but our ID’s and the hope that that was sufficient to get us in. We anxiously drove up the Santa Barbara with Radiohead blaring on the stereo.
We arrived at the Santa Barbara Bowl around 5pm, just about the time that thousands of people had started filtering in to the amphitheater. We spotted the window at the box office that had the phrase “Band Guest List” above it. We swallowed any fear of rejection, and without missing a stride, walked up to the box office, and handed the woman working there our ID’s. She looked in a tray on her desk, and pulled out two envelopes, giving them to my friend and me. Mine contained the following ticket:
Apprehension and doubt immediately turned into relief and excitement… I was going to see Radiohead.
Oh but wait… there’s something else in my envelope…
I had the idea in the back of my mind that this was possible, but, although being a skeptic, I still did not want to “jinx” it, and so I kept such an idea in the back of my mind, doing my best to refrain from discussing it with my friends.
But the quixotic daydream had become a reality. Not only was I getting into the show and had great seats, I was going to the after show party.
With unrelenting marvel from that point on, I saw the show. It was amazing. It was bitterly cold and it rained heavily through the concert, but that bothered me not. The show lasted for over two hours, with twenty-three songs and two encores. The first highlight of the show was the performance of “Pyramid Song” with Jonny Greenway playing the electric guitar with a bow, so beautiful that it nearly brought me to tears. The second highlight for me was the performance of the brand new song “Identikit," which was breathtaking. Videos and pictures I took of the concert can be found on my youtube and Flickr, including this video of the full performance of "Nude."
After the show was over, my friend and I waited for the masses to file out. Thousands exited in awe from what they had just experienced. It stopped raining, and after about thirty minutes, when the crowd was a bit thinner, and we were informed by security that the aftershow was starting. We were told to proceed (with our aftershow wristbands) to the terrace just by the entrance to the bowl. A bit dazed by excitement and high from the second hand cannabis smoke that mixed with the fog and permeated the air, we made out way up to the terrace.
The terrace was this lounge sort of area, surrounded by a deck on all sides, with one side overlooking the entrance to the bowl, the other side overlooking the stage, and a third side hovering above a canyon, overlooking the city of Santa Barbara (this picture doesn’t do it justice).
The party contained about 40-50 important-looking people, about half of which were inside the lounge escaping the cold, and other half were spread out on the deck, smoking, chatting, and visiting the open bar. There were a couple of “B-List” celebrities there, actors and what not I recognized.
I didn’t dare take any more pictures of the party so as to not look like some googly-eyed fan or another sort of impostor. And as it turned out, I learned that photography was prohibited by security anyway.
After enjoying a drink or two and a few conversations with people who work with in the music industry, I reconnected with my concert companion on the edge of one of the decks. As we were sharing our mutual hypnosis over the incredulity of the situation, a group of people passed us. One of which was Thom Yorke, the singer of Radiohead.
We briefly stalked him in a very gentle and inconspicuous manner. He stopped at the side of the bar, grabbed a drink and started talking with his entourage. My friend and I went up to the bar, got a drink, and subtly toasted Thom.
We then faded into the corner of the main deck to again marvel in what we were experiencing. Perhaps due to our somewhat star-struck state, we failed to pay any attention to the people standing directly to the side of us, smoking cigarettes. But I soon realized that one of them was Colin Greenwood, the bassist for the band.
Recall that we had gotten into the show and the after party because the drummer of Radiohead, Phil Selway, was kind enough to put two strangers on his guest list. I felt that I should at the very least introduce myself and thank the guy. And so my friend and I went looking for him in the crowd of party-goers. We soon found him. He was talking with Clive Deamer, the other (temporary?) drummer for the band, and some other people I didn’t recognize. I had no intention of being rude or disrespectful, so butting in was not considered. My friend roamed around the party some more, (I of course) having another adult beverage, keeping an eye on Phil every once in a while.
The group of people Phil was talking to disbanded, and my friend and I realized it was now-or-never, and we made our move. We shook hands as I introduced myself, telling him that I was the one he put on the guest list, via our mutual friend, the Pilot. We had a good laugh at the situation, and my friend and I expressed our extreme gratitude for both the concert and the invitation to the after party. We chatted for a little bit more, mostly small talk. I told him how much I had loved the band’s performance of “Identikit,” that it was the highlight of the show, and I told him that I think the band should continue in that artistic direction. Being quite shy but gracious, Phil Selway nodded and smiled and continued to converse with us until he was drawn away by someone he knew. At that point my friend and I realized that we had taken enough of his time. We shook hands goodbye and again thanked him for everything.
Realizing that we might have exposed ourselves as outsiders at that point, we quickly grabbed one last drink and said goodbye to the other people we had met. We then galloped away into the fog of the night, a thick layer of ocean water reminiscent of something in a 19th century British detective novel, aptly emulating and slightly enhancing the mystique of the night.
It was one of the greatest experiences I have had in my nearly 30 years of existence.
