Yes strap a few groupies to them, problem solved.

Wonder if this is going to be in play for their August concert with The Roots in Liberty Park. Outdoor venue means it is likely, but I guess we'll see.

If I was there, I couldn't help but pretend the LEDs were actually security lasers.

Just for kicks.

I saw Radiohead in concert on Monday in West Palm beach, FL. And let me tell you, not only was the performance fantastic (probably the best tour of the year), but the LED stage was AMAZING! Not only did the lighting mesh perfectly with the music, you could not tell that LEDs were being used, although knowing Radiohead I suspected something like this.

@martini1179: Hmm, interesting to hear. It looks a bit annoying from that picture though but I guess it's one of those things you'd have to see in person.

Comment on Radiohead's Latest Tour Features LED Stage (As Well As Radiohead) Here's the company that makes the LEDs that they used...pretty sweet stuff. http://www.elementlabs.com/

they must be using led's to save money after giving away their last album....

I do like those tubes. Very nice effect.
Nothing too amazing though. There have been products like this about for a while though (like the LED drops that U2 uses).
They are essentially a 1 pixel wide screen, with the height of the 'image' depending on the length (36 pixels per metre for the HD model).

You could stack a bunch together and used it as a regular screen, but that would depend on their proprietary controller. If you wanted to do that, you'd be better off using something like this:
[www.martin.com]
Standard powercon connectors for power and daisy chainable DVI connectors for video. ;)

Moore's Law is definitely in effect in lighting-land. Last vear's Versatube had an element (three LEDs - reg, green, and blue) every six inches. The last ones I saw had an element every inch. At this point the bottleneck in pixel density is the media servers you use to run the gear. Otherwise, the sky's the limit.

Doing a whole show with LEDs is a bold move, for sure; it would be hard for designers to abandon the familiar incandescent spotlight. Hopefully this will lead to concerts using less energy.

We actually do the lighting for Radiohead. We did indeed use a ton of Versatubes running video off media servers (not like your home ones, these are console programmable ones). I'm not sure exactly how many tubes we used, but I believe there were 50 stacks of 8m each or around that number.
Me on the other hand, I'm doing REM, with 2 400A services. But it won't be cold onstage and its going to look sick.

If this isn't better than RHCP's amazing lighting for the Stadium Arcadium tour, I'll eat my environmentaly friendly hat.

@Inaki: I assume Radiohead and REM are still in cahoots then? (Did I just say "cahoots"?)

@Collins1:
Oh man, the Stadium Arcadium lighting was mindblowing! What were they, like horizontal gas-filled tubes of awesomeness?

Oh, and I'm seeing Radiohead in August in Chicago for Lollapalooza, should prove to be very exciting indeed!

I saw them on Tuesday in Tampa, FL. The lighting and stage set was amazing. Loved the video screens behins them showing the band playing from neat angles. "You and Whose Army?" was a done in a very cool way and if you get the song in your set when you see them its very cool, and funny too.

They had this at the concert last night in Atlanta. Was very cool. When I first saw it before it lit up I thought they were going to use a pipe organ.

I believe Linkin Park did something similar for their Projekt Revolution tour last year where they had LED bars to incorporate the stage into the screen behind them. Very cool effect that was.

We thought it was pretty awesome last night in Atlanta. When he sang the line "it should be raining" the LEDs "rained" green light. It was very cool.

@Inaki:
"its going to look sick". No shit!
The NIN show I saw a couple of years ago was first LED exposure I had.
I was blown away. Did you do that one too?
Sick job you have dude!

Radiohead is going overboard with trying to be green (who knows if they really think that way, maybe they're just doing that to get a following). canceling concerts because it uses up gas is going a little bit too far.

With that said, I have seen a lot of venues starting to use more LED lights as illumination. Sure they're pricey, but require very little power (which can be a problem for old venues), they run cool so the band isn't sweating, and it gives a very nice consistant light. Also allows for easily mixing of RGB colors for mood.