Christopher O'Riley takes his Radiohead piano set to Milwaukee

Christopher O'Riley plays his Radiohead arrangements at the Pabst Theatre in Milwaukee on Wednesday 24 September, and OnMilwaukee pitches the night at anyone who missed Radiohead at Alpine Valley in August. This is the first year he has toured the songs from True Love Waits, his Sony Classical record of 15 Radiohead songs, from Pablo Honey to Amnesiac, pared down to melody and harmony on solo piano.

At the Cabrillo Festival in Santa Cruz on Friday 8 August he encouraged the hall to sing along to “Karma Police”, and played “Sail to the Moon” and “No Surprises”, neither of which is on the record. Metro Santa Cruz's reviewer thought his “Motion Picture Soundtrack” and “Sail to the Moon” rivalled the band's own.

O'Riley was hooked the first time he heard OK Computer, and Radiohead are the first band to draw him into dozens of songs as one project. He began with recital encores and with station-break filler on From the Top, the weekly public radio show he hosts for young musicians, then played the songs on NPR's Performance Today in May 2002. My performances lived on the [radio] show's web site, and all the Radiohead fan sites linked to them. By then it had become clear that this was a record.²

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