Lastnightstony

Radiohead on Brick Lane

Ok, this has been a hell of a week and it is not even to the half way point. A week that has more hours in an uncomfortable chair riding jockey on a horse called Nike than Gipeto slings shoes. That is why the idea of a band called Radiohead playing a free show in the neighborhood seemed like a convenient release valve. Timelines were not on my side to take the kind of shots that I have been able to in the past, but just the idea was enough to get me through. I dropped the mouse and took a few hundred meter walk down to Brick Lane. The show had to get moved from Rough Trade Records because there was thousands of people who wanted some action from a band that has busted doors on traditional marketing conventions. This was the original venue after the change of locale.  93 Feet East. A building that is possibly older than Lewis & Clark.  The satelite truck was installed for a live webcast on radiohead.tv.  In the end of the night I realized that London PD is just a bunch of polite folks who are not violent and who are just trying to keep order. They absorb a million times more grief than the LA, NY and SFPD. It’s just the American cops would not socialize and flirt with citizens. In the states, police business is business. The Rodney King incident was not a fluke. the only fluke was that someone filmed it. London folks have respect for coppers who could not hurt a fly and there is something endearing of a culture that has boundaries like that.