Last year, Rock Daily put Grizzly Bear’s Ed Droste to work blogging live from Coachella. He’ll be filing dispatches from the road about his band’s tour with Radiohead over the next week.

Ohio was incredible. The most bucolic pastoral setting. Some of the guys in Radiohead had mentioned it’s one of their favorite venues because of the beautiful setting and old wooden amphitheater architecture. There was threat of rain, but we escaped it luckily and the Ohio crowd were spared what Montreal had to endure, massive thunderstorms.

I had been checking weather.com all day to see if we were going to get pummeled like we were told we might and there it was: all day 70 percent chance of showers for the next 10 hours or so. Montreal was a much different show than the past two because there was no assigned seating, which meant people came early to secure spots and get rained on. Like past evenings there was the initial run to the front, sloshing through the mud and torn up grass and within an hour it seemed the entire field was full with the 30K plus people, throbbing with excitement. Dan went to tune his guitar on stage for a second once and the crowd erupted in cheers. These kids were wet and excited for music.

We had to ride out the storms on our tour bus. We were told that Iggy Pop trashed the dressing room, which was then meant to be ours, the night before when he discovered his equipment went missing. We’ve been robbed once before in Belgium and it sucks, so I can totally understand how he must have felt. Although when we got robbed I just hid in our hotel room and wore our own merch t shirts (was the only clothing we had left) and watched pay per view movies.

The show for us was one of the most fun ever. Never before have we been able to play to that many people, at a festival or anywhere. It had a bit of a European spirit to it, the crowd doing soccer chants (ole ole ole ole), and soaking in the rain reminding me particularly of our muddy experience at Roskilde the previous year. The newer songs, “Untitled” and Fine For Now,” seemed to go over well with the crowd as well. Chris Taylor got an amazing video of the crowd waving in the beginning when he walked up and set up the notes for “Colorado.”

During the set a rainbow came out and somebody remarked on perfect that was given Radiohead’s latest album title. Montreal was the first night I didn’t watch the whole set because the sheer size of the crowd and mud made it hard for me to see much.

After the show we met up with Arcade Fire and rode around on a tandem bike in the mud and drank warm beers. It was all an all a memorable evening.Thanks to Montreal for being so lively! You had an incredible
energy!

Cheers!

[Photos: Simon Guzylack]