Looking back, there probably wasn't a more appropriate patch of weather to be weathered than the intermittent rain and deep, damningly grey clouds that fans had to maneuver underneath on their way the Woodlands Pavilion last Saturday evening. Spirits weren't dampened by one high E string, though. Not only did the mildly adverse meteorological conditions set a suitable tone for the set to come (not to mention the copy of In Rainbows we were warming up to whilst waiting our turn for a space in the White Lot), but it was endearing to see that the multitudes milling towards the venue would have straddled the San Andreas fault line in the middle of the Big One to catch a glimpse of Thom wheedle his internal narrative out of a Rhodes piano until being swallowed alive. Needless to say, we were all looking forward to the show, rain or shine.

Liars opened without any fanfare whatsoever. Apart from the four rabid, sixteen-year-old fans screaming every lyric at the end of the aisle, the set was met with the obviously oblivious "who-is-this-band?" look from almost everyone else in the growing crowd. Rattling off a brief-ish set, at some point their lead singer uttered some arcane voodoo and banished the storm, at which point the clouds parted and the lawn section was saved. Seriously.

An interminable bathroom break and two nine dollar 24-oz. Miller Lites later, Radiohead sauntered onto the stage as though they were entering the living room at their underground lair, ready to play an exclusive set for Bjork and her animatronic pet poodle. "15 Step" indiscreetly foreshadowed what would be the recital of In Rainbows in its entirety. Almost immediately, we saw that the grey tubes suspended from the ceiling of the stage were filled with light, punctuating the music in various sequence as six projections at the back of the stage documented each individual band member's performance from strategically placed cameras in and around the rostrum.

As minions scurried onstage to change out guitars, we skinned our knees on the igneous "Bodysnatchers", played with all necessary recklessness. Sonic palates whetted, we were treated to our first track - of only two - from the band's indomitable opus OK Computer. Playing "Lucky" seemed more effortless than any other song in their set with it's simple chord structure and sublimely straight-forward dynamics. While we were still reveling in the warm wool sweater of a track from "the" album, Thom was introduced to the upright piano and plunked out "Morning Bell" from Kid A, although the reprise from Amnesiac probably would've suited the collective mood better with it's unrelenting and futile cadence.

"Nude" seemed more threatening than the now-immortal counterpart on their most recent album. Unfortunately, "Pyramid Song" was noticeably defanged for lack of Jonny Greenwood's serpentine string arrangements, and we daydreamed through the rather flaccid live renditions of "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" and "The Gloaming". Lull aside, "National Anthem" scared us shitless while threatening strips of light reeled through the pylons like angry poltergeists, framing the band's immaculate rendition. The rest of the guys left the stage afterwards, leaving only Jonny and Thom to pluck out "Faust Arp" like two dirty hippies in an unforeseen moment of intimacy given the tens of thousands of insane fans right beyond the stage skirt. Other highlights from the end of the first set included Thom's perfectly desperate howl on "Videotape", the soulful shaking of "Reckoner" leading into a curiously underwhelming "Everything In Its Right Place" - which, not surprisingly, possesses less gravity when not kicking off one of the most ground-breaking albums of all time. Introducing the song, Thom made a point to explain that when Kid A was released the British press the band "had lost our minds". Not missing a beat, he slyly added, "I thought that was the point."

After finishing off "There There", they left the stage to the requisite and rousing applause of an audience that knew more was coming. We could waste a sentence explaining how pleasant "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" and "House of Cards" were, but we're itching to describe "Climbing Up The Walls". The stage was bathed in blue as though the whole band had been submerged in brake fluid, lighting elements furiously dashing about in sequence with the music. Jonny clutched a sampler like a praying mantis, emitting the bizarre garbled rants of nameless pundits, as Thom channeled all the bitter paranoia that made the original curl our toes. It wasn't until, inexplicably, Thom donned an electric and launched into the stuttering intro of "Planet Telex" that we realized we had truly reached the zenith of the show. Every light on the stage ablaze, the song was bigger and denser by several orders of magnitude than anything else that had yet been played, jarring our senses and threatening to jangle the comically oversized beers out of our white knuckled grasps. We were sent careening back to Fair Park Music Hall in March of 1998 when the boys from Oxford came out and played almost every song off OKC and The Bends, having reached the apotheosis of their talent as the rest of the world bathed in the sublime white light of their utterly perfect creations. Spiritualized opened! Best. Concert. EVER.

"Street Spirit/Fade Out" couldn't help but be beautiful, and as Thom implored us to immerse our souls in love, we wondered if that would be the final thought of the evening. Fortunately, there were a couple more tunes waiting in the wings as the clock approached eleven. As the upright piano was brought back onstage, the six-part video show that had been ceaselessly playing in the background was reduced to one screen. Derisively taunting a spectre, Thom spat the lyrics to "You and Whose Army?" out while cramming his creepy mug into a tight close-up from a lens mounted on the keyboard. As the song reached the climax, his lazy eye encompassed the entire screen, piquing the crowd to jeer with him in a satisfying collective condemnation of all the mindless, corporate and political evils that marked their Hail To the Thief output.

And in closing, Thom did a funny little dance during "Idiotheque" that, strangely enough, made all the girls scream. Leaving the venue, floating along in the maelstrom of over-stimulated acolytes we digested what we had just witnessed: despite a decade of impossible expectations the little mussy-haired juggernaut and his comrades have still got it and are hacking away at the boundaries as fiercely and confidently as ever. Let's hope they come back to our planet soon - and play more tracks off the formidable front end of their catalog.