Deerhoof's drummer remembers Jonny Greenwood running their light show

Jonny Greenwood ran Deerhoof's lights in Amsterdam, writes Greg Saunier, the San Francisco band's drummer, in the last piece of Drowned in Sound's week of Radiohead features. Saunier had watched Jonny quiz the lighting designer at Deerhoof's soundcheck at the Heineken Music Hall, and that night the strobes and effects landed exactly in time with their set. It was Jonny back there in a hoodie secretly doing our light show!¹

Deerhoof opened for Radiohead on six Californian nights in June 2006 and three in Europe that August. At the first soundcheck, at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Colin Greenwood came over smiling and apologised for missing Deerhoof's last show at a small Oxford venue. He took photographs that soon turned up on Dead Air Space, the band's blog.

In Los Angeles, where the dressing rooms were far apart, Phil Selway walked down to Deerhoof's basement room with cupcakes. Whenever Thom Yorke thanked Deerhoof from the stage, Colin would jump about doing their singer Satomi Matsuzaki's dance. In San Diego, as Deerhoof moaned about their small, broken gear next to Radiohead's, Ed O'Brien asked how they got their guitar tone, because he wanted to steal it.

Saunier rates Radiohead's crew above any he has met. Jim Warren, whom he calls the band's sound engineer since the early 1990s, mixed Deerhoof on the European dates, since they could not afford to bring an engineer of their own.

On a day off in Dublin, Deerhoof booked a club show and ran into Jonny and Thom in a vegan restaurant. Radiohead's Irish tour manager had roped Jonny into playing at a traditional music night in a pub, and Jonny had roped in Thom to watch. When he heard about Deerhoof's gig, Thom said he would go to theirs instead. He did, dancing in the crowd and patting Saunier on the back as he came off stage.