In 120 minutes, Radiohead at once managed to dispel those nasty rumors that it had abandoned its epic guitar rock and revealed that, yes, it's moved on to something entirely different. Ringleader Thom Yorke, guitarist-knob twiddler Johnny Greenwood, bassist Colin Greenwood, drummer Phil Selway and guitarist Ed O'Brien confirmed that richly textured layers of guitar rock ladled with computerized chaos is Radiohead's trip, thank you very much.

Just before 8 p.m., the crowd began to stir as the band made its way to the stage from its trailer, wholly visible beyond flimsy plastic fencing. The four sidemen went first, proceeded by Yorke, who dramatically tiptoed and shushed the crowd, as if to say, "You've no idea what you're in for."

Immediately the band peeled away its notoriously introverted veneer. Yorke's cockeyed mug was broadcast larger than life from two video screens framing the stage, and cameras zoomed in nearly too close for comfort as he danced herky-jerky to "The National Anthem" off 2000's "Kid A." Yorke and his bandmates let cameras run right up their scruffy faces, over the sweat beading their foreheads and down the drool streaming from their mouths as they sang.

The video screens, attracting the crowd's attention away from the actual band members onstage, provided an interesting irony. Most of those fans, who waited so long to see Radiohead up close, watched them exactly as they've become accustomed to seeing them: on the telly.

The set was largely comprised of tracks from "Kid A," 1997's "OK Computer" and this year's "Amnesiac," and the studio-bred elements of those albums were fantastically intact onstage. Tracks like "I Might Be Wrong," "Idioteque" and "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box" mechanically crackled and hummed in all the right spots.

For the evening's most intimate moments, Radiohead revisited its past. The lullaby "Fake Plastic Trees," from 1994's "The Bends," hushed the crowd to the point that a far-off jet plane was audible. Yorke pretended to stumble on the album title "Pablo Honey" when introducing that 1992 debut's lovely "Lurgee," but his delivery of the tune was clear and entirely heartfelt.

Radiohead has handpicked Scotland's fair, freckled Beta Band to open the tour. The crowd mustered a ho-hum response to the Beta's wildly funky, tech-infused folk-rock. A shame, as the quartet absolutely held its own in front of the larger-than-it's-accustomed-to crowd. No matter. The Beta Band giggled through its 40-minute set. Better received was Canadian DJ Kid Koala, whose spinning ran the gamut of funk, vintage Radiohead and Star Trek sound bytes.

In the end, though it was Radiohead who charted the evening. As Yorke played piano during the soaring encore of "You and Who Army," his face looming over the crowd, he slyly raised his eyebrows while singing, "Come on if you think you can take us on." After a show so grand, there isn’t anybody who’s going to meet his challenge.

Click here for Radiohead tour information.