The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Downs)

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The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Downs)

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 4:11 pm

I just searched the forum and I'm surprised I never brought this up before. About a month before 9/11, I went with three people to the Radiohead concert at Suffolk Downs. After the show was over, each of us individually reported feeling very, very strange vibes the whole night. Now, yes, we had smoked a little pot. But there was anxiety afoot all over the place, not just in our heads. The sunset was spectacularly ominous. The Kid A and Amnesiac songs were almost all, of course, apocalyptically angsty. It felt like we were at a funeral, for America or civilization or Earth. Now, that all sounds pretty routine, but in retrospect the strangest moment of the night was when the "rain down" bridge of Paranoid Android began. At that exact moment, a plane from Logan flew right over our heads, and the crowd erupted in cheers. At no other point during the night was a plane noticeable. Just at that exact moment. The typical rock concert synchronicity alone was already epic, and then a month later it turned...weird.
Last edited by FourthBase on Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Radiohead at Suffolk Downs the month before 9/11

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 4:50 pm

Now I gotta search online to see if anyone else has ever reported the same thing. I remember once upon a time checking and finding at least one person who said they felt the same dark energy. But my google-fu is weak and Google itself is a piece of shit now so I wonder what I'll be able to find out there. Should at least be some people who remember the Rain Down plane moment. Let's see...
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Re: Radiohead at Suffolk Downs the month before 9/11

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:04 pm

Found at least one confirmation, although it's not exactly a source independent from my group of friends that night.

http://coldfrontmag.com/ten-years-of-kid-a/

Dateline Boston: This is really happening

August 14, 2001–I was at Suffolk Downs with my friends seeing my first Radiohead show ever. For those unfamiliar, Suffolk Downs is Boston’s horse racing track. Previous to that night, I had never been there. All you need to know is that it’s both awful (isn’t all horse racing kind of awful?) and near Logan Airport. We gleefully smoked a ton of pot making merry horse and dog racing jokes. I couldn’t even bore you with a description of who said what. Memory does not serve. I do remember, however, what happened during the show.

The sun finally started to fucking set in that August blue that makes everyone want to live forever. But unfortunately, Radiohead was in a foreshadowing mood. Idioteque. During Idioteque the planes from Logan began to pound down overhead at rush hour pace. Low. Loud. Almost as loud as Radiohead.

Ice age coming
Ice age coming

Here I’m alive

The intensity of these words while the planes flew low (I mean dangerously low over the crowd) was terrifying. Women and children first. I felt like something really bad was happening or about to happen and please don’t assume it was a weed freakout. My friends all felt like something bad was going to happen also. The whole crowd’s energy implied something bad was about to happen.

Something bad was about to happen.

This was really happening.

I felt a message in the song and in the planes over head – that is, in the juxtaposition. Since that night I have learned a lot. I don’t believe in fate. But that night cross my hahhht there was an awful stink in the air and it wasn’t the horses’ shit from Suffolk Downs.

9/20/10 Brooklyn


I don't remember noticing any other planes that night. Strange. Must be the erasure of selective memory. The Rain Down plane was the only one I remember.
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Re: Radiohead at Suffolk Downs the month before 9/11

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:21 pm

Ha! I had already posted about it as a comment to a RigInt blog 13 years ago.

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2 ... 8811659550

Well, if you want 9/11 synchronicity stories, I could tell you about the Radiohead concert at Suffolk Downs in August 2001. Foreboding cloud formation at sunset, plane flying directly overhead (Suffolk Downs is quite close to Logan Airport) at the exact moment that the "rain down" section of Paranoid Android begins, crowd erupted in cheers.

There were also strange vibes and ominous lyrics on Stereolab's Sound Dust, released shortly before 9/11.


("Mitch", lol. Ah, I miss the good old days of ironically watching Dawson's Creek.)

Sound Dust totally has to be at or near the top of any list of music that oozed 9/11-clairvoyant vibes. Hopefully in a good-witch way and not in a possibly-clued-in-on-the-plot-as-accomplices Coup kind of way.

EDIT: Jeff's perhaps-ing re: the Lone Gunmen "coincidence" is weak: "Maybe this is what accounts for the 9/11 synchronicities of The Lone Gunman pilot. Rather than Chris Carter being tipped off, perhaps he tapped in." Pfff, no. I know we've covered this before here, but these days you would have an extremely hard time convincing me that the makers of that show weren't tipped off somehow. Tapping in, my ass. It's a small world.
Last edited by FourthBase on Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 5:37 pm

Let's make a list.
(If one already exists, link it.)

* Radiohead, Amnesiac

Image

At the very least, because of the Suffolk Downs show.
Kid A is arguably just as clairvoyant.
OK Computer, too, with its aircrash theme.

* Stereolab, Sound Dust

Image

* The Coup, Party Music

Image
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:04 pm

Here's a list in the same ballpark:

http://www.canada.com/entertainment/sou ... story.html

Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot would be a good choice, except that you kind of have to take Tweedy's word that it was all composed before 9/11.
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby coffin_dodger » Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:13 pm

Synchronicities are often a highly personal experience, but in some circumstances, it might be possible that it can be shared by multiple minds in a group setting. Maybe if it's a very powerful synchronicity, it could be transmitted via the same, or a similar, mechanism that spreads fear. I've only experienced fear in a group setting once - and I could swear I saw the wave coming towards me, felt it pass into me.
Cold and nasty, it was.

Maybe.
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby FourthBase » Sun Dec 15, 2019 10:30 pm

coffin_dodger » 15 Dec 2019 20:13 wrote:Synchronicities are often a highly personal experience, but in some circumstances, it might be possible that it can be shared by multiple minds in a group setting. Maybe if it's a very powerful synchronicity, it could be transmitted via the same, or a similar, mechanism that spreads fear. I've only experienced fear in a group setting once - and I could swear I saw the wave coming towards me, felt it pass into me.
Cold and nasty, it was.

Maybe.


Someone else was there that night, closer to the stage and so the eerie sunset must have been invisible to him, but he reports some kind of wave of energy that passed through the crowd. I wonder if it was after that Paranoid Android moment.

http://rnrchemist.blogspot.com/2015/04/ ... k.html?m=1

Later on in the show, something happened at the back of the crowd which brought a big roar from behind before everyone started pushing forward in a massive crush. It was actually quite scary and I remember my brother (who is 6'3" and solidly built) and I (as stated, 6'5" and also solidly built) tell my wife and sister to get in front of us as we locked elbows and held back against the crush. It was probably the most scared for my safety that I've ever been a show as the crowd was really surging hard and had they not let up, I'm not sure we could have remained standing more than another few minutes. It hurt!
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby RocketMan » Mon Dec 16, 2019 7:08 am

Thank you for sharing this viscerally related personal story FourthBase!
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby FourthBase » Mon Dec 16, 2019 5:42 pm

Apparently their very next concert was at Liberty State Park with the WTC as a backdrop.

https://www.reddit.com/r/radiohead/comm ... kdrop_was/

I still can't believe there's no other mention of the Rain Down plane moment online. All I can find is my own account of it. But I know I saw someone else note it somewhere on the internet. Hmm. Maybe I should try a different search engine.
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby FourthBase » Mon Dec 16, 2019 6:24 pm

Someone else also reports planes flying loud and low all that night. I really don't remember that. Maybe it's because I grew up in Southie and learned to ignore planes. (Until 9/11, of course, after which all planes seemed like winged missiles.) I wish there were concert footage. This person also thought the sky was clear, though. Not quite. I absolutely distinctly remember cloud formations to the left of the stage from our perspective in the crowd, and those clouds were ominous in a Ghostbusters, the-portal-has-opened kind of way.

https://bricabracandbinkies.blogspot.co ... r.html?m=1

Another great show (and they were great both times I saw them) was Radiohead. I saw them back in the end of August of 2001 at Suffolk Downs in Revere. It was a beautiful summer night--sky was clear and pink with sunset, and the air was warm. I went with my friend Anthony and we were able to get into the blocked fan area towards the front of the stage. We kept creeping closer and closer to the stage while the Beta Band and Kid Koala were opening up for them. I could see Thom jamming out in the wings of the stage. It was neat to see a member of the headlining band enjoying his opening acts! I worked hard at creating a pillow of sand at my feet that I could stand on but it didn't help because I still ended up with a fractured right foot from standing on my toes in platform flip flops the whole night. Since the venue was so close to Logan Airport, we were able to see airplanes fly over head: creepily low and loud. Weird to think that September 11th happened a little more than 2 weeks after this concert.
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby PufPuf93 » Mon Dec 16, 2019 6:55 pm

Radiohead Suffolk Downs set list

August 14, 2001

The National Anthem

Airbag

Morning Bell

Lucky

Knives Out

Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box


No Surprises

Dollars and Cents

Street Spirit (Fade Out)


Pearly*
(dedicated to the Hard Rock Café)

Just

I Might Be Wrong


Pyramid Song

Paranoid Android

Idioteque

Everything in Its Right Place
(with Manic Street Preachers' '… more )

Encore:
Like Spinning Plates

Talk Show Host

You and Whose Army?

The Bends

Encore 2:

Karma Police

The Tourist

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/radiohea ... 6ecf5.html
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby Laodicean » Mon Dec 16, 2019 8:35 pm

Performed The National Anthem and Idioteque Live on Saturday Night Live - Episode aired 14 October 2000



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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby Elvis » Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:45 pm

Am I the only one who is completely unfamiliar with Radiohead? Never heard them until I listened to the tracks above. I like the beat and texture of "National Anthem" but don't like anything about "Idioteque."

Really, I'm just bragging about how uncool I am. I pretty much ignored popular music after 1980 or so.
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Re: The Music of 9/11 Clairvoyance (Radiohead at Suffolk Dow

Postby FourthBase » Mon Dec 16, 2019 10:52 pm

The chaos at the end of National Anthem has to be about as close as SNL ever gets to avant garde dissonance.

OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac make complete sense as post-9/11 artwork. If you didn't know any better, you'd think they were. Like that "I'm going to tell my kids" meme, you could tell your kids that those three albums were made in 2002 and 2003 as an interpretation of and response to 9/11, and they'd believe you.

If I can believe any bands were tapped into a paranormal frequency, rather than prosaically tipped off, it'd be Stereolab but especially Radiohead. Thom Yorke, the little spastic one-eyed canary absorbing all the bad energy of our collective subconsciousness building up, and regurgitating it. I could definitely believe the universe was speaking through their music, like a...radio-head. Of course, there are weirder scenarios, weirder than extrasensory perception, weirder than synchronicity. It's not completely out of the realm of the possibility to me that one of my all-time favoritest bands is a mouthpiece for some kind of luciferian illuminati or whatever. There's that dilemma of how can you tell if an artist is warning you about evil or promoting it. Radiohead could very well be a band of sensitives telepathically tuned in to the vibes of a generation freaked out by an increasingly malevolent world. That's what they probably are. But they also are exactly what I would expect if songbirds were handpicked by a satanic ruling class preparing a generation for the trauma of a collective psychic paradigm shift.

Let's look at some lyrical selections, in order, for shits and giggles:

In the next world war
In a jackknifed juggernaut
I am born again

Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height... height...

The dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
The panic, the vomit
The panic, the vomit

The breath of the morning
I keep forgetting
The smell of the warm summer air

We hope that you choke, that you choke
We hope that you choke, that you choke
We hope that you choke, that you choke

Shell smashed, juices flowing
Wings twitch, legs are going

Floor collapsing
Floating, bouncing back
And one day....
I am going to grow wings
A chemical reaction
Hysterical and useless
Hysterical and...

Let down and hanging around
Crushed like a bug in the ground
Let down and hanging around

This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
When you mess with us

sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia

no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows


no chance of escape

will not cry in public

no longer empty and frantic


I will stop
I will stop at nothing

When I go forwards you go backwards and somewhere we will meet

Do not cry out or hit the alarm,
You know we're friends 'til we die.

And either way you turn
I'll be there
Open up your skull
I'll be there
Climbing up the walls

A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal

You look so tired, unhappy
Bring down the government

The Head of State has called for me by name
But I don't have time for him
It's gonna be a glorious day
I feel my luck could change

Pull me out of the aircrash

Sometimes I get overcharged
That's when you see sparks
You ask me where the hell I'm going
At a thousand feet per second [about 682 mph]

Hey man slow down, slow down
Idiot slow down, slow down

[that's from "The Tourist"]

Everything in its right place

Rats and children follow me out of town
Rats and children follow me out of town

Everyone
Everyone is so near
Everyone has got the fear
It's holding on
It's holding on

In a little while
I'll be gone
The moment's already passed
Yeah, it's gone

I'm not here
This isn't happening
I'm not here, I'm not here

Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes

[that's from "How to Disappear Completely"]

This one's optimistic
This one went to market
This one just came out of the swamp
This one dropped a payload

Trapdoors that open
I spiral down

We're not scaremongering
This is really happening, happening
We're not scaremongering
This is really happening, happening

Morning bell
Morning bell
Light another candle
Release me
Release me

You can keep the furniture
A bump on the head
Coming down the chimney

Stop sending letters
Letters always get burned
It's not like the movies
They fed us on little white lies

After years of waiting
After years of waiting nothing came
And you realize you're looking,
Looking in the wrong place

[that's from "Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box"]

I jumped in the river and what did I see?
Black-eyed angels swam with me
A moon full of stars and astral cars
All the things I used to see
All my lovers were there with me
All my past and futures
And we all went to heaven in a little row boat
There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

[that's from "Pyramid Song"]

Doors on the rudders of big ships
We are revolving doors

There are doors that open by themselves
There are sliding doors
And there are secret doors

Come on, come on
Holy roman empire
Come on if you think
Come on if you think
You can take us all on
You can take us all on

You and whose army?
You and your cronies

You forget so easily
We ride tonight
We ride tonight

I used to think
I used to think
There is no future left at all
I used to think

Open up, begin again
Let's go down the waterfall

I want you to know
He's not coming back
Look into my eyes
I'm not coming back

Sleepy jack the fire drill
Run around around around around around...

Bear witness we can use,
Be constructive with your blues.
Even when it's only warnings.

And this just feels like spinning plates
I'm living in cloud cuckoo land
And this just feels like spinning plates
My body is floating down the muddy river

She is papering the window panes
She is putting on a smile
Living in a glass house

[I'm cherry-picking suggestive parts, for sure, but there are some more, and I made sure to select something from every song on those three albums]
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