The setlist from Sunday’s Radiohead concert at Nissan Pavillion in Bristow VA looks amazing. Too bad we saw so little of it. Seven songs to be exact. What happened in and around Nissan last night can only be described as a complete clusterfuck. And we were on the receiving end. Torrential rains, flooded roads, car fires, and more torential rains led to the most misserable concert experience of my entire life.

We left from Baltimore at 5pm, planning on actually tailgating a little before heading in to the show. Ha. I know it’s a pain in the butt to get into Nissan, but nothing could prepare us. By 6pm we had made it to 495. 6:30 before we made it to I-66. 7:30 by the time we made it to Nissan’s exits. Unfortunately, we chose to take exit 44. At this point I’ll thank the state of Virginia for the brilliant use of all their electronic highway signs. Instead of saying, “Left exits closed” you might have wanted to say that the way into Nissan at exit 44 WAS COMPLETELY FUCKING FLOODED. Oh no, no one needs that information. So, we crawl along towards the entrance, and around 8:20 we actually think we might make the start of the set. And then we see the entrance we should be going into blocked by a cop and a detour sign telling us the road ahead is flooded. The detour wrapped around the entire place for miles. Amazingly, the crawl was slowed even more by a vehicle fire. Thats right, in the heaviest and most pounding rain ever, a car caught fire. The rain was so heavy, it was knocking over chain link fences and pouring into the street. I took a couple videos:

We even contemplated turning around, and many cars did. But by 9:45, we were close enough to actually hear Everything In Its Right Place playing in the distance, and we decided we had to keep going. Entering the parking lot, it was a total disaster area. Cars going every direction, mud flows and people directing traffic to nowhere. Luckily we cut down a random row and moved a barrel to get a spot. Now the real fun starts. Sprint from the car. Make a bad choice to go up a hill. My friends fall and get covered in mud. We actually enter the main gate around 10:15 and can hear Like Spinning Plates playing. Of course it still takes us forever to get to our seats and we miss LSP. When we do get to the seats, the people around us are staring at us, of course wondering where the hell we’ve been. And then more then 5 hours of hell payed off. They played a glorious run songs for the encore, including Karma Police and Planet Telex. Leaving the stage after 4 songs, but returning quickly, Thom commented that they had just heard about the flooded roads and all the madness and dedicated the next song to them/us. It was Fake Plastic Trees and it was glorious. I shed a few tears as it played, and it kind of made the whole horrible fiasco worth it.

As expecting, it took us hours to get out of the miserable parking lot, but at least we were laughing and joking, despite all being completely soaked beyond belief. I really can’t imagine how depressed I would be if we had missed the entire thing, or how elated I would be if I had actually seen the whole show. But I know that I will never go back to Nissan Pavilion. There was a period of time when we were totally beaten and had relegated ourselves to missing the entire thing, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so sad. I hate Nissan for that.

Any readers go to the show? Let us know your experience. It had to be better then mine.

Mp3: Radiohead – Fake Plastic Trees (Live @ Bonnaroo 2006)