About a month ago I was invited by Greenpeace to help with their Save the Arctic campaign at a Radiohead gig. At first, all I heard were the words "Radiohead gig".
Of course there are always perks to volunteering for Greenpeace, but then, sometimes, THERE ARE PERKS.
Radiohead are legends, I mean, a lot gets said about the way they abandoned their guitars for a decade, but it takes a band of some caliber to flip a genre on its head and continue to make mind-blowing music.
Sorry, I forgot, this blog is meant to be about saving the Arctic, excuse me.
But what other band could draw up a set list that included just one song from their first three albums and still make it one of the most incredible gigs that each one of 20,000 people in attendance had ever been to?
A night dominated by electronic beats so bassy that even sat in the fourth tier of the arena it still felt like an earthquake, yet, at times so moving it almost brought a tear to my eye.
And to top it off, Thom Yorke ends by playing Everything In It's Right Place, the song to which he has lent for use on Greenpeace's Save the Arctic campaign, and at a piano adorned with a Tibetan flag. Seriously. How cool is that???
How nice of Thom also to help get this blog back on track. Save the Arctic. Yes, well, we arrived at the O2 Arena a full three hours before the arena doors opened and five hours before stage time. That's a lot of time to kill.
And what better way to spend it then by adding just shy of 1,000 new names to Greenpeace's era-defining Arctic Scroll?
I once sat through a lecture on queue management at university, and I could certainly have shown the O2 Arena staff a thing or two. Never has the skill of walking backwards with an iPad around your neck ever been so useful.
With a little assistance from Paula the Polar Bear our team of hardy Radiohead fans, erm, I mean, Greenpeace volunteers, spread the Save the Arctic message via a famous brand of magical tablet technology and our very own magical linguistic skills.
It also helped that we could say, when all else failed, "You know Thom Yorke's signed this petition, right?" He had invited us to be there, after all. And given us free tickets. TO A RADIOHEAD GIG.
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