Live at the Santa Barbara Bowl (August 2008)

the rig

The band played the Santa Barbara Bowl on 28 August 2008, though their upload dates it the 23rd, and the film is dedicated to Richard Young, their production manager and friend. Young had run Radiohead's production since 2003, and the In Rainbows tour was the one with the lighting rig made entirely of LEDs. He told Bob Boilen of NPR that the reason was to “decrease the carbon footprint” of the tour. Nothing like it had been built before, so the crew had to work out how to make it run, and then how to take it on the road.

In the Bowl it hung over the stage as columns of light that changed colour with every song, and Aly Comingore, reviewing the show for the Santa Barbara Independent, thought the lights nearly stole the night from the band. More than 4,500 people were inside. The band had played the Bowl twice before, in June 2001.

"Cymbal Rush"

The set opened on “Reckoner” and ran to 25 songs. The first encore began with Thom Yorke alone at the piano. “This one, if I remember it, is from The Eraser,” he said, and played “Cymbal Rush”, the last song on his solo record, which turned up on about a dozen Radiohead nights that year. Comingore counted it among the best moments of the evening.

NPR had been told it could put the whole concert online only if the band were happy with how they had played. At a small party afterwards the word came back that they were, along with CDs of the night, and Yorke told Boilen he was blasted. All Songs Considered posted all of it in September.

the dedication

Young died on 23 April 2021, aged 47. Four weeks later this film went up in the band's second run of archive concerts on YouTube, with his name in its first lines.