Pitchfork reports that Radiohead’s concert this weekend in Kansas City, Missouri was met with protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church. According to Radiohead’s own website, At Ease, a note on the Westboro website about the protest referred to Radiohead as “freak monkeys with mediocre tunes.” Which sort of implies that they’d be okay only if they were freak monkeys with killer tunes. Nigel Godrich joked on Twitter that it was the “highlight of the tour so far.”
I am asking in all seriousness: don’t the members of Westboro have ANYTHING better to do?
Also: who rendered them judges of musical quality? They will find a great many people who disagree with them about this particular band, most of whom know a bit more about music than they do.
This one is particularly strange because, like, was there anyone out there who thought Westboro Baptist Church just MIGHT be fans of Radiohead? It’s just so . . . incongruous. It’s not even offensive, like protesting funerals. It’s just weird.
I agree with you there – and something I even forgot to wonder about: how is Radiohead sinful and/or gay? There are many more obviously hell-bound artists for them to turn their gimlet gazes on. Like you said. Weird.