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Grammy Rehearsals with Radiohead: 'There's a Surreality to It All'

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The 51st Annual Grammy Awards are Sunday night, and the rehearsal schedule for today is stacked with big names -- U2, Paul McCartney, Coldplay and Stevie Wonder

But the day got off to an especially compelling start as Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead strolled in, shook off the rain and performed “15 Step" to the impressive accompaniment of the USC marching band.

Radiohead has racked up a fair number of Grammy accolades through the years (the band enters Sunday with five nominations for “In Rainbows," including its third career nomination for top album) but trophy galas are simple not its scene.

“I've called through years but the answer was always a polite no," said Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the show since 1980. This year, the answer was yes, and there was crackling energy in the venue as the band ran through its number.

Yorke arrived looking more like a fan than a star with his scruffy leather jacket, bed-head hair and khaki-colored backpacker. He danced a little jig in the aisles as USC's Spirit of Troy warmed up with -- of course -- the Fleetwood Mac hit “Tusk."

The crew of the show is hard to impress, but by the third take it was all eyes on the stage as Yorke gave an animated interpretation of the song, one that somehow sounds both cerebral and tribal.

“Can you make my voice sound a little bit less shiny," Yorke asked the sound team. “Take the top off -- I like the idea of belting it out with these guys."

The rehearsals for the 51st Annual Grammy Awards could be considered the calm before the storm of the ceremony -- except, well, they haven't been all that calm and rain has been falling on Staples Center for days. The show will air live on the East Coast on Sunday night on CBS and, with an unprecedented 24 musical numbers, the producers are struggling mightily with a dizzying number of moving parts and compelling subplots.

One scheduled performer, Kid Rock, almost didn't make it to Los Angeles because of a courthouse entanglement from a Georgia assault case. Another, British star M.I.A., is nine months pregnant, which raises the possibility that the 31-year-old nominee might deliver more than an acceptance speech if she wins the record of the year Grammy for her track “Paper Planes."

There also had been talk in recent days that Coldplay, the English rock group nominated in the record of the year category for “Viva La Vida," would be served with court papers at the ceremony as part of a pending plagiarism claim.

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