"We don't know what tomorrow brings / We don't know what tomorrow brings / We don't know what tomorrow brings / We don't know what tomorrow brings" is the chorus Thom Yorke wails in The Smile's song with the same title.
This sentiment rings both so true in my life today, but also in my experiences getting to see him perform either on his own or with his bands Radiohead and most recently The Smile. In 2001, I made a special trip to visit a school in Chicago at the same time Radiohead was stopping through town in support of their their Kid A/Amnesiac tour. Without going through all the details, I was a sad fan with a ticket in hand missing the show without a way to get myself into the city from the burbs where I was staying.
Well, fast forward to now, a little over 20 years later (happily have caught live performances since), hopeful I was going to get to cover Yorke's newest project, The Smile (a collaboration of Yorke, composer/bandmate Jonny Greenwood and composer/percussionist Tom Skinner) when they recently toured through Chicago in support of their debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention. Unfortunately, this go around my hopes were dashed, but as fate would have it, a little luck would shine on this fan this time around. It would happen that a week later, I'd find myself in Denver on a work trip, luckily on the same weekend the band was playing a two-night stand at Mission Ballroom.
I don’t normally break into discussion of the opener, but this evening’s lead-off, Robert Stillman, felt almost like a prologue into the band’s performance shortly following his own. He explained there would be no breaks in between compositions and the half-an-hour's piece of music would play similarly as a taste of The Smile’s music. I would whole-heartedly agree with this description/sentiment.
To preface this review, I was introduced to the first breath of this collaboration/band earlier in the year when they shared their first single “You Will Never Work in Television Again” along with announcing a three-show livestream broadcasted performance and I was ALL IN!! So to say, I was definitely left in a mindset of reflection after the opener and eager for the trio to arrive onstage, is an understatement. And when they did...Yorke was as seemingly eager himself to greet the crowd before opening the show with the album’s opening track.
With Greenwood on piano, he and Yorke delicately eased us into the set as Yorke pleaded for the crowd to strap in and connect with the band for the evening’s performance. What I love about the band’s music is how it has this way to envelop me from the outside in, starting from my ears and slowly submerging me with his echoing words and these ambient sounds. I felt mesmerized, in awe and some sort of trance following each and every note they were playing. The haunting yet angelic cries of Thom Yorke’s voice have successfully been able to echo throughout my head over the years (no matter the record, band or project), while his words dig into my psyche and push/pull on my strings constantly reconnecting and reacting in an emotively fantastical manner.
Listening to the band’s catalogue laid out in this choreographed setlist, I found myself looking at their performance from an existential standpoint and less like a concert and more so like this auditory journey through our own minds being guided through a specific path lit up by the stage lighting. At one point as a song intro began, Yorke paused and stared intently into the lighting on his right, as if he were searching for something or could see an existence on the other end of them. I felt similarly at times when closing my eyes and allowing the music and words to consume me. The set included a few newer or previously unreleased songs scattered in the set the band had clearly been working through while on tour that were exciting to hear.
They welcomed the opener, Stillman, back on stage along with a couple touring musicians to accompany them through the unfamiliar songs which were all exciting and hopeful to hear as this feels like a collaborative project I'd love to see where or what it could continue to develop into in the future. In the end, there was a part of my 20-year younger self who felt grateful to have gotten to experience this evening with The Smile.
Setlist:
The Same
Thin Thing
The Opposite
Speech Bubbles
A Hairdryer
Waving a White Flag
Bodies Laughing *
We Don’t Know What Tomorrow Brings
Under Our Pillows *
Just Eyes and Mouth *
Skirting on the Surface
People on Balconies *
Pana-Vision (with opener Robert Stillman)
The Smoke (w/ Stillman)
You Will Never Work in Television Again (w/ Stillman)
Encore:
Open the Floodgates
Bending Hectic *
Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses (Thom Yorke song)
* denotes new or unreleased songs
