Probablemente hayáis escuchado a alguien decir que estuvo de cañas en un pub con Jarvis Cocker. O a alguna otra persona comentar que se encontró a Miles Kane en un bar de Barcelona, y que el cantante de The Last Shadow Puppets le dedicó un simpático guiño. Sí, son muchas las historias de encuentros entre fans y celebrities que hemos escuchado durante años, pero pocas han contado con Thom Yorke de Radiohead como uno de los máximos protagonistas. Por ello nos ha parecido realmente curioso el relato que un fan del grupo británico ha compartido recientemente a través de Reddit.
Por lo visto el usuario Let The Deed Shaw viajó hasta a Austin para ver a tocar a Radiohead en Austin City Limits. Al ser un gran fan de los sintetizadores, este chico decidió acercarse el día después a una de las mejores tiendas de sintetizadores del condado. ¿Quién iba a poder resistirse a un 2×1 tan suculento? Nadie. Lo que el chico desconocía era que en ese mismo establecimiento se iba a encontrar cara a cara con Johnny Greenwood, y también con Thom Yorke. Con este último acabó probando parte del equipo de la tienda durante una larga hora, comentando los pros y los contras de los diferentes dispositivos, e incluso descubriendo las preferencias en clave de hardware que tenía Yorke a la hora de trabajar. Al final el seguidor acabó despidiéndose de los dos músicos tras pasar un inolvidable rato junto a ellos. Y se llevó para casa uno de los paneles con los que Thom había estado jugueteando durante ese rato, más que nada por aquello de cumplir uno de sus grandes sueños: poseer un instrumento empleado por uno de sus mayores ídolos.
Aquí comparto con vosotros la historia al completo, relatada con pelos y detalles por el sorprendido protagonista:
“So, we drove 10 hours to see Radiohead last night at ACL. Third time seeing them, and they were incredible as always. The other reason I was excited to visit Austin was to visit a synth shop called Switched On. I’m an avid modular synth builder/user and there’s not a store like Switched On anywhere near where I live. It’s a pretty niche hobby to say the least.
As I’m working on a patch on their demo wall, I look over my fiancé’s shoulder and see what appears to be Johnny Greenwood jamming on an old ARP. I stand up, draw my fiancé toward me and say “that’s Johnny Greenwood.” As that sets in, I hear the stool I had been sitting on roll up to the case of modules. I turn around, and there’s Thom Yorke, sitting six inches from me and messing around with a couple of modules.
I turn back around to my now-understanding fiancé and say (safely muffled by the numerous sick jams going on all around us), “and that’s Thom Yorke right behind me.”
As I’m saying that, I notice Clive Deamer, Portishead’s drummer that’s currently touring with them, checking out an old Korg.
I also notice I’m wearing my Radiohead shirt.
We stay for a while and listen to the store clerk and Thom talk, playing it cool and just trying to soak up this incredible interaction. Thom walks away and I sit back down to keep testing modules. I was determined not to make this a fan moment, because I knew the most valuable thing I could give him was a normal moment in a synth shop.
I say under my breath to the clerk “this is crazy,” and he just grins.
As I’m patching, I hear “what’s that there?” from over my shoulder, and there Thom is, checking out what I was doing. We talked and patched for about an hour, joking about how esoteric and complicated some synth modules are. He was super interested in the Mutable Instruments Braids. I showed him a couple of my favorites and he said, “see, anything with a grid like that immediately gives me a headache. I’m just a singer, so I can do vocal effects and oscillators, but some of this is too much.”
We looked at a very small dual sampler and he commented “see this is much too small; this one here is the sampler for people with really good glasses.”
It was all like a dream. We jammed a little more. He was at least remotely interested in the music I was making. He bought an Intellijel Metropolis sequencer, and they loaded up Johnny’s sequential circuits prophet into the back of a cab and left. I waved at them and they waved back.
That’s about it. I feel like I’m both here and not here. It was really beautiful and validating seeing my absolute hero geeking out over the same convoluted hobby that I do. We didn’t discuss who they were, we didn’t discuss the show, and we didn’t discuss how I was about to pass out from joy.
I didn’t get a picture, since I’ve heard he’s not crazy about them, but I thought if any community would appreciate this story it would be you, /r/Radiohead.
Side note: I bought some modules we both were using that he left behind, so I finally own some music gear used by Radiohead”.
Fotos del panel de sintetizadores que adquirió (y que había probado junto a Thom Yorke):
