Review: The Smile at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium
Thom Yorke was all about the here and now on July 3 at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium.
“We’re a new band called The Smile,” he said near the start of the show, and later introduced a number by saying, “Here’s a new song — a new song because we’re a new band: that’s what we do.”
The emphasis on freshness was intentional by Yorke because of the Radiohead-shaped pool in which members of The Smile continue to swim. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are (were?) members of that hallowed, influential, and beloved band. But on this night, they were obviously ecstatic to be playing all of the songs from The Smile’s first album release — 2022’s A Light for Attracting Attention — as well as a batch of new material.
The excitement about the newness of the entire enterprise for Yorke and Greenwood seemed to be highlighted by the opportunity to play with drummer Tom Skinner, co-founder of the UK jazz band Sons of Kemet. Skinner demonstrated his extraordinary beat-making skills, enough so that it’s fair to wonder if Yorke and Greenwood started The Smile as an excuse to play bass with Skinner. The Asheville concert featured monster groove after monster groove in which Yorke and Greenwood shifted between bass, guitar, piano, keyboards — and even one strum of the harp by Greenwood — throughout the night.
The versatility by the members of The Smile was on display in other ways as well. The album lacks sing-along choruses, and Yorke’s vocal phrases move in and out of awareness with key phrases repeated for emphasis. Whether due to the sound mix or outdated acoustics, it was harder to understand the words that Yorke sang in Asheville, but easier to focus on the soaring nature of his voice over the instrumentation. Time and again, Yorke manipulated the echoes of his effect-laden vocals by overlayering loops, and the results were entrancing.
Seeing Greenwood play guitar live was likewise enlightening as he’s increasingly established himself as the 21st century King of Riffs, inheriting that distinction from Jimmy Page. Playing his gold Les Paul at times throughout the night made the similarity all that more pronounced. Greenwood displayed his guitar dexterity during “The Opposite,” which featured him playing a riff that sounded as if he had opened up a bag of unhappy snakes. Elsewhere, “Thin Thing” proved that robots enjoy riffs, too, as Greenwood, Yorke, and Skinner created a retro yet futuristic groove that had the power to slowly pull off the top of one’s head. This was accompanied by a set of spooky Yorke vocals, floating at the level of the auditorium’s aging ceiling.
Another highlight of the night was “A Hairdryer.” The band improvised an opening in which Greenwood played his bass with a bow, building to a big, slow, Crazy Horse-style feedback detonation. After this introduction, Greenwood performed a bass breakdown that once again demonstrated his and Yorke’s love of the instrument. Later on, “The Same” featured a looped keyboard straight out of a John Carpenter soundtrack with Greenwood on piano and surreal sound effects by Skinner. They were joined later in the song by the movie-star-level timing of Yorke’s entrance on bass. One of many descriptors of Radiohead’s music — especially in the second half of their career — is “weirdly danceable,” and this number certainly reflected that classification.
As previously referenced, The Smile played a number of new songs not found on their releases thus far. “Under Our Pillows” centered another magnificent Greenwood riff that shifted to a different tone during the coda, highlighted by his Beatles-y guitar work. “Colours Fly,” a different unreleased track, again recalled Page as Greenwood played Indian-sounding lines on his hollow-bodied guitar that were doubled by opener Robert Stillman on saxophone. This number holds tremendous promise for The Smile’s future direction as it allowed Greenwood to connect his inside-out rock ‘n’ roll leanings with his love of Indian music as best heard on Junun, his collaboration with the Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and the Indian ensemble the Rajasthan Express.
The penultimate song of the night during a rapturous, four-song encore was “Bending Hectic,” which Yorke introduced by saying that it had only been released a few days before. The studio version features the trademark Greenwood strings utilized in his soundtrack work and latter-day Radiohead albums, especially Moon Shaped Pool. But how would the lack of strings affect The Smile in concert? Not much, as the band doubled-down on Greenwood’s guitar work while Skinner channeled indie rock drum wizard Jim White on percussion. “Bending Hectic” showed their ability to effortlessly shift between the song’s different sections like the confident professionals they are, rather than a newbie band uncertain about how to translate their recordings into the live setting. Overall, the Asheville rendition worked better than its studio counterpart, thanks in large part to an ending featuring a guitar freakout by Greenwood, further certifying his guitar hero credentials.
Such a commanding display was all the more impressive considering the compromised environment within the aging venue. A few days before the show, venue management sent an email stating, “Due to a recent malfunction of our venue’s HVAC system, we anticipate minimal airflow throughout the seating areas resulting in a hot and humid feel throughout the space. In order to mitigate these conditions, we will be offering free water and paddle fans to all guests attending.”
The heat inside the venue was immediately apparent when entering the doors to the auditorium, and during the opening set by Stillman, who created baths of sounds on a synthesizer, over which he improvised on saxophone. Once The Smile took the stage around 9 p.m., 90 minutes after the show’s listed start time, the room’s temperature stood at merely warm, but grew increasingly humid as the night progressed. When the performance was over, audience members were eager to leave and find cool, fresh air. Though the heat became noticeably and physically uncomfortable, the visual of fans moving in time throughout the auditorium was pleasing, especially when the multi-colored lights from the stage poured over the crowd.
The Asheville Symphony already moved their entire season away from the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium because of the HVAC malfunction, so it was a bit of a surprise that the concert still happened. Asheville Stages editor Edwin Arnaudin also attended the show and expressed disappointment at the decision to proceed with an opening act, considering the muggy circumstances, and a desire for a moratorium on Thomas Wolfe Auditorium shows until the HVAC is fixed. “I wouldn’t have persevered if it wasn’t a bucket list band that I doubt will play locally again for a long time,” he said.
Arnaudin’s comments reinforced the overall mood of the audience, who hung on the band’s every gesture and sound, cheering musical transitions and erupting in applause at the conclusion of each song. The crowd exhibited a deep commitment to Yorke and Greenwood, especially since they had never played in Asheville during their Radiohead touring days. Beside Yorke looking as if he had jumped into a pond, the band seemed to not be affected by the extreme heat in the venue.
The powerful response to their new musical platform was especially evident in show closer “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses,” the only song of the night that didn’t originate from a studio recording by The Smile. It was originally a single released by Thom Yorke in 2009. In Asheville, The Smile built off of the recording to create the night's most monstrous monster groove that could have generated enough power to bring the auditorium's HVAC system back to life. It was highlighted by the pairing of Yorke’s bass and Skinner’s drums and accentuated by Greenwood’s guitar, the latter of which was both intricate and beautiful as well as crunchy and powerful.
The audience provided a rapturous send-off at the song’s conclusion, an appropriate response for a band of experts in their chosen fields who have started a new project as a way to further investigate sounds and musical expressions. Let’s hope the conditions of the venue won’t keep them away from another visit to Asheville.
(Photos by Justin Bowman)
