IF misery loves company, then Radiohead will be delirious at the prospect of meeting 38,000 Irish clans at the RDS today. And if the clouds burst over today's sellout show, that will be even better, because we will all be able to sing the bit from Paranoid Android which goes, "Rain down, rain down on me/ From a great height".
Last summer, the Oxford five-piece played to a damp and delirious crowd at Castlegar Sports Ground in Galway, so let it pour. We won't care, because we'll be too busy drowning in Radiohead's heavenly sorrows.
Since they first played Dublin's Rock Garden four years ago, in front of fewer than a hundred punters, Radiohead have grown from whiny English guitar boys to powerful, passionate rock giants. Their new album OK Computer has been the most eagerly-awaited album on the 1997 rock calendar, stirring up even more interest than U2's POP The band have also been tipped as the next U2, albeit a darker, more tortured version, and at their concert in New York's Irving Plaza last week the guest list included Madonna, REM, Oasis, Blur, Helena Christiansen, and the soon-to-be-deposed Dublin band.
In its first week of its Irish release, OK Computer sold more copies than the entire Top 10 albums put together. According to Stevo Berube, manager of Tower Records, OK Computer is the fastest-selling album in the Dublin store's four-year history and, on the day of its release last Monday, most of the other record shops were sold out by lunchtime. OK
Computer is confidently expected to debut at Number One in Britain.
David Bowie is to do a concert in Dublin's Olympia Theatre this summer.
It will take place on Friday, August 8th, at 8 p.m. and is being billed as his only Irish concert this year. Tickets - there are 1,400 available - are due to go on sale from 9 a.m. next Saturday, June 28th, at the Olympia and other usual outlets. Credit card bookings on 01-677 7744.
