Review: Radiohead Reimagined by Candlelight

This weekend, I found myself in the gorgeous St Giles’ Cathedral for the first time in years – a reminder that, even as a local, it’s easy to overlook Edinburgh’s wonderful structures. The occasion was Radiohead Reimagined by Candlelight, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed.

It’s almost redundant to point out just how much of a good fit St Giles’ Cathedral is for a candlelit anything.

London Concertante had ‘reimagined’ many of Radiohead’s classic songs but not Creep. I think that’s a slightly controversial decision, as the song likely recruited many show attendees to the church of Radiohead in the first place. I also get the argument that London Concertante made; Radiohead is so fed up with the song that they even wrote another to express just how finished with Creep they are.

Omitting Creep is forgivable, but I would have liked to have heard a reimagined version of the song.  

Reimagined Radiohead

What even is “reimagined Radiohead”? In my case, these are songs that I recognise as Radiohead favourites, but the usually supernaturally good ‘identify this song’ feature on my smartphone could not.

London Concertante has done Bach and Vivaldi before, and they turn their symphonic skills over to a Radiohead tribute for this concert. It’s a match made in heaven, even better in St Giles and works very well. Although many of the songs made me think of sad anime outro music.

There’s no singing here; this performance is strictly musical.

Did it work?

Heck yeah. There was one song in which the percussion was too loud for me, overpowering the strings, and based on how people around me were looking around, a few more in the audience would agree with me.

My most crucial audience anecdote comes from the lady next to me who had wet cheeks by the second song. She was clearly a Radiohead fan of some degree, but I suspect she would have been frustrated if London Concertante had botched the symphonic orchestra transformation of these iconic songs.

The candles were perhaps health and safety modest but still numerous enough to be evident and certainly boosted/where boosted by St Giles’ ambience.

The whole concert, which had a break in the middle, was about two hours long and passed in a flash. I don’t have any photographs of the performers because it felt like a dirty move to block people’s view by whipping my smartphone out during the performance – it certainly frustrated people in my row when people in front did it. However, I do have some photographs of the stage and candles and I think they manage to elude a little to the mood.

Overall

While I appreciate classical music, I’m not sure I’m an avid enough listener to seek out, for instance, London Concertante’s Vivaldi tributes purely for the novelty.

As a Radiohead fan, though, I really enjoyed and would recommend Radiohead Reimagined by Candlelight.