Marseille (France) 23/1/1999

From : sandrine (cossonpa@worldnet.fr)
Date : 27/1/1999
Suject : (UT) FRENCH TOUR !
[...]
MARSEILLE 23/01/99: I think the girls have resume the evening well...It was the best one until now but Paris is usually great so. We had a nice talk with the boys and their crew...I've got some interresting pics btw thanks to cecile!

From : Beetlebumbee (beetlebumbee@caramail.com)
Date : 20/11/1999

Concert Unbelievable Truth

SamedI 23 janvier 1999 21H30
Le Poste A Galene Marseille

After their fanstastic performance, I had the privilege to chat with some of the members of the group and I got to know them a little better...

One of the question I always wanted to asked Andy was to know if he was happy... ‘most of the time I am’ he said, but he didn’t seem very conviced about it, so I had to ask ‘what about right now?’ he fainted a ‘its alright’ and kept quiet.
I’ve noticed he smiled a couple of times on stage but it never really last, so I questioned him about it: ‘How does it feel on stage’ (or something like that) because he didn’t seem to be happy on stage, and also if I pissed him off, ‘cause every time I asked him something, he seamed embarrassed or annoyed to talk to me, though he denied the fact that he seemed annoyed, he said that sometimes he'd rather be some where else, like where? ‘somewhere private’, and no he wasn’t pissed off, but ‘tired’, later I learned that he was very shy. Thing that I didn’t really know at the time, I just always thought he was grumpy or something.

I also asked him what was the point of putting twice the lignes "thinking of ways to keep my time from running out, thinking of ways to feep my pride from runnig out" in « Stone » and « Forget About Me ». He smiled weirdly and said ‘I thought it would be interesting to have the same sentence twice in two different song’, but he didn’t want to say more, he always seemed very pissed off and a bit embarrassed by all my questions, but most of the time, he used to chuckel, because I was the only one bothering him with all thoses weird questions.
Jim was standing next to him, he seemed very happy about it all. People coming at him, and tons of girls clearly lusting over him, and saying how fantastic and godly they were. I ask him, sacasticly, if it wasn’t to hard to autographe all the papers everyone was handing to him. ‘Not at all!’ he said ‘it’s the best feeling in the world, it’s the best job!’ and he really meant it. That killed me, though he really looked happy, that was pleasing.
I like to see that there is somehow, in some strange way some happy people.
Then Back to Andy. (Jim didn’t really talk, he was way too excited.)
I asked him about the fact that I heard that people thought that « Forget About Me » was about a tramp, he noded silently his head, looking to the floor, and said ‘why not?!’....
It was a bit frustrating to ask him questions and seing that he was not very open about his work, and being very introverted. He always use to look right into people’s eyes in a way of saying ‘what do YOU think about it?’ and that would be it... no more, no less.
A group of person, mainly girls, kept on questioning him about Radiohead, Radiohead and more Radiohead, and that’ was all they could talk about... He seemed very bothered, surely because it was obviously not the first time, nor the last time people were coming up to him and all they have in mind is the fact that’s he’s Thom’s brother... But he didn’t really answered, and just let the moment passed, or let Jim answer to the questions.
After the group of girls left, he turned to me like ‘God, what are you going to ask me now?!’ in a friendly way, and well, the subject just came up and I saw how irratated he was about the whole Radiohead thing, so I asked him in a timid way ‘Don’t you mind beeing compared to radiohead all he time?’, because I ,too, was getting tired of the groupies lusting after him and just well, everytime I read an aricle about UT, the first intro lines were ‘Thom Yorke’s kid brother has a band..’, ‘the second best, from radiohead..’ etc... and stangely, he just answer calmly ‘ what we do is very different than my brother, but sometime, yes, it is’
A guy came around, looking all proud and sly, (well not really...) and he had this look on his face like ‘ Boy, I’m going to tell you something man, I swear to god, no-one ever told you that’.
He was sure coming up to something. And so he said something like ‘ Your music sound just like Radiohead's! and you just have so, so the same voice, the same way of playing guitar, you are SO alike, and sometimes, I even get your two bands confused’. That was a happy one...
This guy kept on telling all the members about how similar they both sound, and how it was fantastic and all, it must run through the genes or something... still the guy seemed very happy about himself, even though I told him to shut up. But I just stopped translating and I said that I didn’t really think so. Andy smiled and agreed (he did smile! ) then he said " we wouldnt bother if we did the same kind of music as they do » . You could tell he was really taking the piss out of the guy...

"Mister and Miss Grumpy" said the Isabel Monteiro, talking about her and Thom. Now I understand: its a family thing!

Also, I ask him about translating for green peace in russia and all... He just nodded. That what he does, he noddes, all the times, well most of the time I saw him, that’s all he did. He ‘s really not the talkative kind of guy.
Just the nodding kind of guy.
And just little things , such as, why don’t you write a song in Russian if you’re fluent? He just said it wasn’t really his thing to write some lyrics or poem in an other language, and that it would sound awful if he did, because it’s not his birth language.

During the performance I yelled something like « what’s the name of that song? » (it was a B- Side) but I kind of knew it, because I could see the tracklist from where I was. Though he answer me, and that was nice of him. So he came up to the microphone and said in a deep tiny voice « that song’ s called ‘ Ciao!my shinning star’ »... and then a bit later I asked again, what was the name of an other the song, though, I cant remembers what it was..

. At the end of the performance, Andy tore out the sheet of paper with all the names of the song, on stage, and he gave it to me. (Argh!!!!!)

After I left Andy, I went around the other room, it was empty. It had this weird kind of atmosphere because juwt a while ago, the room was full of lights, crowed people and most of all, the music was filling the room from the floor to the ceiling. But now it was empty, only some staff guy were cleaniong the place. A brilliant performance by all four members (that ’s right, I’m counting Jim) And then, I spotted Nigel! I had already seen him right after the performance, and I had already his autographe. Big Deal.
So I caught him up, and yelled in the half empty room ‘Niiiiiiiigel’. I looked like a real moron yelling like that, but I didn’t care. It was too damn exciting being able to talk to him again.
I asked Nigel a lot of thing. First, if he was happy. Full of enthousiam he gave me a positive answer, which was pleasing knowing I had such a hard to talk to Andy. (now the questions and answer were short and simple, so I wont carry on narratading every single act, so you’ll get the question/answer kind of interview) Where he lived: Abingdon, they all live in Abingdon. How the atmosphere in the band was, ‘we're all best friend’, I told him that I lived in Abingdon for two years and he seemed surprised and said, ‘its a small world we're living in!’
I asked where he went to school, most of us went to Abingdon school. Then randomly, he said he liked my dungarees he had one too on, and like a little boy, he pointed out his proudly....
Then I got a little scared I would scare him away, so we talked about that. Me talking to him. He said I was the first person asking him so many questions, usually people are standing there waiting for him to make the conversation and stare with their eyes wide open looking at him. So he didn’t mind at all. He told me tons of things about them and Andy, that he was very shy, that kind of thing, the music he listen to, (I can only remember REM, but he named a couple, and just said ‘the usual, you know’ like it was obvious) that they toured with TorI Amos, that he likes the second halh of the show from Statics, (as opposed to the first...) and a whole lot of other things... that he normaly does all the conversation for all the band and if he didn’t do it, nobody would and that he had to past the fact that he is also shy. ‘the dirty work...’ I said half kiding. I don’t expect them to be really ‘fresh’ after a show, adding to the fact that they have to talk to fans or just sign loads of bits of paper; I didn’t really see how he could cope with all of that, but no he said, he likes it, he was always very smiley and seemed happy -unlike Andy- ....I think i'm starting to like him best... I mean, it’s kind of strange talking to him, and I really expected moron, and that they would really treat us like stupids. But he didn’t.
We also talked about the songs they played, and he pointed out the tracklist I had and told me that it wasn’t written in the right order. So he took a pen and wrote on the back of the sheet where « Ciao! my shinning star » came from and wrote the proper order of their encore. That was nice too. Here’s the right order of the song they played:

01- Forget About Me
02- Settle Down
03- Stone
04- Tyre Tracks
05- SameMistakes
06- Finest Little Space
07- Highter Tha Reason
08- Angel
09- Who’s To know?
10- Ciao! My Little Star
<<<>>>
11- Solved
12- Landslide
13- Shed Your Skin

He told me that « Shed Your Skin » was going to figure on the new album. When he told me the title of the track, I went a little weird and said ‘Shed Your Skin?!’ isnt that a little... ‘so he ‘reasured’ me by saying it was some kind of methaphoric way, not really to shed your skin as the meaning of it. It sounded a bit spooky when he said it at first.

Then we went on talking about them. I told him that their video sucked (that wasn’t mean, I was saying that because I really thought they were a bit.... weak.) he said that he knew and totaly agreed with me, and in general videos are extremelly boring and he hated them, and making them. So we talked about how when and where their videos were made. « Higher Than Reason », was shot in a little airport in a little town were he never goes, I asked him about the concept, because I didn’t undestand, he said he didn’t know either and we laught. I expected him to know a little better, but he didn’t really care about the whole damn video concept. That was the only video I saw from them, so I couldnt really discuss anything more about it, but he told me it didn’t really matter because the other one were also lousy and boring. Well at least here’s a ‘pop-star’ that don’t take himself seriously!
He was very gentle and sweet,and kind... hum that did sound phoney, didn't it?

Then my father came around to pick me up, so I had to go. And I went all pathetic, that’s true, I admit it I said something stupid like ‘well, I’m never going to met you again, but whaddaya care...’ I just said that because I figured next time I’ll see him, he’d be all famous and arrogant and wouldnt give a flying fuck about his fans, or people liking his music, or just me.
But no! he denyied it and say, ‘well, I’ll probably see you again next year, hopefully, same place!’ and that was really nice from him to say that. Even though, I know fairly well, that if ever I see him agin, he’d be like ‘do I know you?!’. But at that time it seemed like he really meant it. We said goodbye and I wished him luck for the band and his life in general. I shook his hand and left.

Well, I got everything that I ever dream to wanting from this concert:
01) A pick. That’s right, I forgot to mention it, but this security guy gave me this pick at the end of the show. Because I was really nice to him, and I even took plenty of photos of the band, even though I wasn’t allowed to do so, but he didn’t really care, and just closed his eyes on the whole thing. Which was nice.
02) their track list. As I mentioned before Andy gave it to me as he was on stage, which got me the curses of a bunch of jealous girls, but I didn’t really care. I was too damn happy by the whole evening to let some childish girls spoil the night. I really was.
03) a bottle. that was pretty exciting because I brought back a bottle from Radiohead’s stage when I saw them in concert -their bottle-
04) autographes, and I took loads of photos of them, and I got to met them& talk to them! ! !

LIFE IS AN UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH !!!!!! it really is...sometimes.
Makes you think that life is worth living.... sometimes....

back