As sweat dripped down our backs and soaked our shirts, as lights flashed in front of our eyes, my friend leaned over to me and, wide smiles splitting both our faces, said, "They make it look so easy!" There really is no better way to sum up a Radiohead show than that. Fingers move over instruments with practiced ease, and the band seems to barely give a second thought to the fact that their live show is as technically intricate and executed as perfectly as on any of their albums.

The members of Radiohead are truly astounding to watch. On the one hand, they are - now more than ever before - willing to open up to their audience. But at the same time, they are reserved and deeply within their own little musical bubble. The range of emotions displayed by the band in concert rivals all the shades in the rainbow. They are playful, they are intense, they are amused, and they are at their very best. On this, their first American tour in a year and a half, Radiohead transcended the achievements of their past and gave their fans a first glimpse at a band renewed and reborn.

Merriweather Post Pavillion, in Columbia, MD., is one of the few venues that comes with a curfew. But Radiohead have made it their business to steer away from concert venues owned by Clearchannel Entertainment, which left Merriweather as the only real logical choice for thier long awaited return to Maryland. After the fiasco in Bull Run, which resulted in a weekend of canceled shows, Mid-Atlantic fans have been foaming at the mouth during their wait for the band to return.

Not a band to disappoint twice, Radiohead was forced to conceed to the curfew and start their show earlier than they would have liked. But they took it in stride with their typical British wit, taking the stage in the hazy dying purple light, and began the evening with "The Gloaming," a song named with an archaic and poetic word for "twilight."

The first twenty minutes of their set blasted through songs from their new album, "Hail To The Thief," including the raucous "2 + 2 = 5" and the soaring "Sit Down, Stand Up." It seems that "2 + 2 = 5" is quickly becoming a fan favorite, as it sent the audience into rounds of frenzied dance and unabashed mimicry as Thom shouted, "Oh hail to the thief! / Oh hail to the thief! / But I'm not!"

Maybe it was because they wanted to make up for the "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" shows that were missed in 2001, but the band made sure that they were not exclusive to new material. Their set leapt all over the place, and they managed to play at least one song from every album they released by the end of the night. They covered sinister and sexy with incredible performances of "Wolf At The Door" and "Dollars and Cents," while calming the audience down from their near-frenzy with ballads like "Sail To The Moon" and "Pyramid Song." They even gave us a mouthful of "OK Computer" with incredible renditions of "Airbag" and "Paranoid Android."

To the utter shock of everyone in attendance, the band even broke out the long-loathed fan favorite, "Creep," and got a hysterical reception for their trouble. And surprisingly enough, Yorke was in a deliciously playful mood during "You And Whose Army," taking advantage of a camera perched on his piano to make hilarious faces at the audience, inviting them to "Come on if you think / come on if you think / you can take us." And bassist Colin Greenwood led the crowd in lethargic clapping during the seductive and sickly "We Suck Young Blood," turning it from a simple live performance to a near-perfect replica of the album version.

But for all of Radiohead's technical precision, they manage to maintain the spirit behind the music. Thom was in top form, dancing, shaking and spasming his way across the stage, leaning down to sing directly to the audience or taunt fans crammed into the pit. Colin and guitarist Ed O'Brien seemed to be trading inside jokes with drummer Phil Selway all night, and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Johnny Greenwood hovered over and prayed to his array of technical equipment and guitar pedals like the mad genius he is.

Each member seemed to pour his heart and soul into each song, and the audience responded in kind. I know I had no voice left by the end of the night, between singing along and letting out whooping cheers as each song reluctantly drew to a close.

True to form, the band showed their appreciation by offering up two encores. The first one ended gently with the soft strumming of "How to Disappear Completely," and the second bleeped and sampled it's way through a seemingly endless coda as "Everything In It's Right Place" simply refused to end.

And, as the machines kept the music going long after the band left the stage, the panel of lights that served as a backdrop all night (and looked something like a soundboard in a studio) began to scroll the word "FOREVER." Radiohead may have left the building, but their music was still ringing in our ears as we dazedly wandered to the back gate in hopes of meeting the band. But that's another story entirely.