Radiohead webcast to compete with Obama speech

Fans of Radiohead and Barack Obama alike are in for a tough decision this evening: watch Obama's sure-to-be-historic speech accepting his party's nomination, or catch a live webcast of Radiohead's last American concert (for a while) at the band's official website. (Fortunately, there are such things as TiVo and YouTube.) Radiohead bass player Colin Greenwood announced earlier today that the band will be streaming its sold-out Santa Barbara, Calif. show this evening.

Months of touring in support of In Rainbows has finally come to a head. The band will next travel to Japan for the last six shows of its tour. Ever the sly operators, Thom Yorke and Co. have been building up suspense on their website all day. The band posted an entry entitled "might come in handy" encouraging Mac and Windows users to download VLC before Greenwood went ahead and confirmed the webcast. Greenwood highlights:

"Hello! To celebrate the end of a brilliant tour, we're going to webcast the last show here in America. We'll be playing live in Santa Barbara, at the Bowl.  It's one of our favorite places to play; I think we've ended tours there before, once even playing a cover of ' cinnamon girl '. It's not too big, in fact it's very intimate, a small arena with a dirt floor, set in pretty countryside. It should be a special night, for lots of reasons, and we're going to try and share as much of it as we can on the webcast. Nigel, our producer, will be helping out getting it to you, so if it goes wrong....It's live!"

Ticketmaster says the concert kicks off at 6:30 p.m. PST. Meanwhile, that Obama guy is supposed to give his big Democratic National Convention speech at 8 p.m MST, in front of a crowd of no less than 70,000 at Denver's Invesco Field stadium. Obama will be preceded by such musical flavorings as Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow and Will.i.am with John Legend. Fans who end up choosing real-time Yorke over Obama will be able to read the transcript of Obama's speech here, or view it in its entirety when it inevitably ends up on YouTube (like vice presidential nominee Joe Biden's speech has).

Related links:
Review: Radiohead - In Rainbows
YouTube: Radiohead - "House of Cards"
Green Plastic Radiohead: Oh, and by the way, webcast tonight

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