If it hadn’t been for the cold rain that fell with increasing severity during Radiohead’s two-hour set, Tuesday’s love-in at Thunderbird Stadium might have been the summer’s concert highlight. What was most obvious was that this isn’t the same band that would get combative with Vancouver audiences back in the mid-’90s, nor was it the Radiohead that used to be fronted by a humourless viper. Whether he was gently chiding the high-spirited boys lining the stage front for dancing a little too aggressively, mugging for the camera during a dramatically puffed-up version of “You and Whose Army?”, or referring to guitarist Jonny Greenwood as “darling” as the two stood toe to toe for a splendid run-through of “Faust Arp”, vocalist-guitarist Thom Yorke seemed like a man whose troubles were finally behind him. This should be considered in the context of Thom Yorke, of course. It’s not like he became Henny Youngman since Radiohead’s last Vancouver visit in 2003, but there was a warmth to his antics that sat at a weird but pleasing angle to the quintet’s deft musical representation of paranoia.

Speaking of which, the modern anxieties and fraught neurochemistry that lurk inside the band’s grooves were given a stunningly simple visual boost by static cameras trained unblinkingly on various parts of the stage. With songs embellished with two-tone colour schemes—“Talk Show Host” was given a blue-grey Freon cast, while a prickly “Jigsaw Falling Into Place” was all green and gold—it was like watching a band on mood-enhanced surveillance cameras. At other times, we were given mesmerizing access to Radiohead’s methods, such as Jonny Greenwood’s tense struggle with the tricky, almost out-of-time percussion in "Videotape". Greenwood is an extraordinary creature, bouncing between guitars, keyboards, and all manner of mysterious electronic devices, and often losing himself completely. His effects-laden journey through “Planet Telex” was a thrill, as was the sight of the bent, angular Brit pounding obsessively on his guitar during “Bodysnatchers”.

Greenwood’s brother, Colin, was modestly heroic by comparison, rocking from foot to foot while dishing up monster bass hooks, and second guitarist Ed O’Brien filled an equally unsung role. But both are essential to Radiohead’s songs, which tend to build from a riff and one of Phil Selway’s fussy drum patterns, into Escher loops of dubby bass and bickering guitars. “Just” was uncertain, with an indecisive tempo and parts that refused to fit, but Yorke rolled with it, giving the song an anarchic new reading and a side dish of ham. The encore-closing “Paranoid Android” also suffered from Jonny Greenwood’s too-choked guitar, but so what? The show was in the bag early on, from the moment Radiohead completely—and I mean completely—silenced the mostly very young and altogether very excited crowd with an intense, gripping “Exit Music (For a Film)”. After that, any small problems seemed irrelevant. Too bad the damn weather refused to play ball.

Georgia Straight, August 2008