T'was a dark and stormy night… Well, it most definitely was.

Quite possibly the most talked about tour all year has been (and will be) the long awaited return of the almighty eclectic powerhouse that are Radiohead. Having last graced our shores a tad over ten years ago (of which included a cancelled Brisbane show) finally a decent chunk of our town gets a chance to see the elusive band that has and will ever be one of the most successful names of the last twenty years.

The environment tonight is a strange one for people regularly present amongst Brisbane shows and the long sold out Entertainment Centre is a sight to be seen. However, even though a few thousand are present, the room is relatively empty for New Zealand, now London based act Conan Mockasin who plays to a relatively noticeable empty room. The addition of the art-pop group was always a low publicised (especially with this tour, naturally) feature of the onslaught due to come. Still, the group to those interested played an intriguing set that borderlines minimalism. Unfortunately in this environment it doesn't get the appreciation that it deserves, due in part to the lack of appeal to tonight's broad audience. Then again, it seems that everyone including the band would have known this before the night began.

The crowd gradually deviate from the merch desk and/or bar and file into the room, looking around thousands upon thousands of people seeming to have ants in their pants whilst also resembling ones are treated to what feels like a lengthy wait. Fifteen minutes after the scheduled start time, the lights go dark and a low level purple light goes on, then the inevitable deafening roar takes things over as Radiohead pick up their instruments and our pony-tailed star Thom Yorke walks up to the microphone. The curtains then drop, revealing a towering LED light backdrop which explodes with orange effects almost as a sunrise with Lotus Flower being our gateway drug to the rest of the night.

Bloom instantly follows and the spectacle is an epileptic's nightmare and twelve screens also hang from the ceiling, complimenting this visually mouthwatering feast. It gets to the point that you could quite easily believe that on-tour drummer Clive Deamer is a hologram of Phil Selway (they do look identical!). If you have had time to take it in, the group are nimble and simply technically gratifying, delivering above and beyond the skill level anticipated. Joy was already at a height amongst the crowd before the distorted riff of Ok Computer's Airbag cuts in and naturally the crowd display in turn its reaction. An upright piano is carried out onto stage and Yorke begins the maj7 chord melancholy of The Daily Mail with his trademark voice proving it works, melting the hearts of all the girls (and yeah, the boys too) in the arena.

Dedicated to Mitt Romney only a week earlier perhaps as a distaste is transformed into a celebration it seems, as Yorke hurls himself around the stage dancing to the deep (!) bass of Myxomatosis with scrawled green lines as our backdrop before being turned into a ketamine infused descent into the Matrix, appropriately lined up with The Gloaming which tonight is a sea of vocal loops and ear punishing glitches. Things are then mooshed into a 'safer' world with the upbeat Separator before we get our hearts broken with our first taste of In Rainbows with the tender Reckoner seeing most of the group taking to percussion as Yorke delivers some of his best falsetto of the night. It is simply spine-tingling beauty at its best.

Continuing on, it's still continual heart-wrenching with the piano driven You and Whose Army, melancholy fat synth drama with Climbing Up The Walls, soaring melodies (minus its original strings) with Nude, unexpected new material in the form of Staircase, tight to the T riffage with The National Anthem, club-like heaven with Feral all before quite possibly the hardest Radiohead song to date Bodysnatchers closes the first portion tonight which, unfortunately within the mix perhaps it is a tad lacking in the aggression of the original, not that it stops anyone from being slapped in the face with sound.

The band re-emerge (a soon familiar and welcome sight) and Yorke's loop pedal once again gets a workout with Give Up The Ghost. Then it seems out of nowhere the opening chords of Pyramid Song are played and the room is once again transformed for a different form of better. Shortly after, it's back to Ok Computer with staple Paranoid Android instantly sending the audience into uncontrollable cheer/bliss. The track itself though doesn't feel as if it has the same effect on the band but is more than made up for with the accompanying visuals hitting you hard during the 'loud' bits and bringing you down during the 'quiet' bits in the track's university graduate grunge fashion. Another didn't expect that track moment comes with Street Spirit and in the live arena, is the down in the dumps singalong as much as it is on record, a good low for the group to once again go out on.

The ever-moving screens are then lowered and tilted downward to hit the band resembling a low ceilinged packed nightclub with 15 Step and Yorke most definitely feels that way, dancing around the room and Greenwood added effects turning the seemingly normal relatively laid-back track on record into this dance floor tripout. Moving behind the electric piano, Yorke teases a bit of the group's Bjork cover Unravel with the obvious tones of Everything in it's Right Place eventually coming out and seeing the band do everything right as they have before, leaving a wall of noise and Greenwood on stage manipulating oscillators and effects and eventually being rejoined by the rest of the group for tonight's third and final encore Idioteque, which takes on a faster pace than on record and sees the only technical fumble of the night with Greenwood's glitches slipping out before the eventual peak, which is admirably attempted again queued by Yorke and yeah, it works, leaving noone really caring about the fault as it sends out the two hour plus set that parallels a successful weekend courtship experience.

Bottom line. Radiohead are the band that guys can take their girlfriends to and still seem cool. The band that bogans can yell out for the tracks that they hear being covered at the local and can thankfully be ignored. The band that at some point throughout peoples changing lives were their favourite band. The band that people can take drugs or drink alcohol or stay sober to and be blown away. The band that nerds love to dissect and the untechnical can marvel at. The band you can cry to. The band you can punch someone in the face to. The band that you wish you could be in and for tonight the band that ultimately satisfied everyone in the room and pissed off the ones that couldn't be.

(They're also the band that Translink didn't anticipate)