10 Songs That Sound Better Live Than On Record

8. Radiohead - Like Spinning Plates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrw31WuzVg A huge amount of the pleasure derived from going to a Radiohead gig is trying to guess how exactly they are going to transform one of their most loved tracks into something else entirely. I could have went for a number of songs here; Idiotechque builds from a burping computer beat into a clattering rush that Thom can bug out to, Just is positively feral and there may be a reading of Creep that dropkicks the needle off the Sarcasm Dial. Like Spinning Plates is a pretty, slight thing on record, if utterly creepy with it's synth gargles and Lynchean backwards vocals. Live, it's a thing of beauty. Thom's vocals are stripped of effect, and suffused with emotion and power, and all the better for it, and the arpeggiated piano figure is simply lovely. Radiohead have been on a constant mission to evolve and reinvent since The Bends in 1995. No matter what leftfield turn they take, the live performances always put their more conservative, mainstream counterparts to shame. And yes, by that I mean Muse.