Radiohead performed their first gig of 2008 tonight (January 16) in London, playing recent album ‘In Rainbows’ in its entirety.
Having surprised fans by only announcing the free “instore” gig at the Rough Trade East shop in Brick Lane only this morning, the band found themselves as surprised as the crowd when the show had to be moved at the last minute.
Following the 250 capacity shop’s plans to show the gig on screens to fans outside in the cold, the police and local authorities stepped in with safety concerns forcing the show to be moved to the nearby 93 Feet East venue.
This meant that Radiohead took to their new stage at 10.20pm (GMT), over two hours later then scheduled.
Kicking the show off with ’15 Step’, Yorke then showed the strain of the venue change, declaring “What a fucking day,” before the band moved quickly into ‘Bodysnatchers’.
Following rumours amongst the crowd the band would play the whole of ’In Rainbows’ in order, Yorke confirmed that was indeed the case just ahead of ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ telling the crowd, “OK, guess what’s next”.
With the album’s middle tracks following quickly, Yorke did not speak to the crowd again until he burst out laughing when the band fluffed the opening to ‘Reckoner’
“I’m not taking the blame for that,” he told the audience. “There’s a bass player here and that’s a bass note."
"I’m glad it’s not in the shop actually," he admitted, "fair play to Rough Trade for putting up with it.”
Yorke himself then stumbled over the opening of ‘House Of Cards’. “Warts and all! Bum notes and all! That’s why it took so long to make the record,” he joked as he restarted the song.
With the end in sight, the frontman introduced ’In Rainbows’ penultimate track and current single ‘Jigsaw Falling Into Place’ by revealing his aftershow plans.
“It’s been a very strange day so it’s possible I might have to have a drink at the end of this,” he explained. “I’m trying to cut down, but today seems a bad day to cut down.”
Finishing the set with ’Videotape’, Yorke quickly returned alone with just an acoustic guitar for the encore.
“Thanks everyone hope it was worth it. We’ll play some other shit now, because this a gig, isn’t it?” he explained, before performing a solo version of the ‘Up On The Ladder’, which was released on the bonus disc of the discbox version of ‘In Rainbows’.
With his bandmates rejoining him, Radiohead played ’You And Whose Army?’ from ‘Amnesiac’ along with ’Kid A’‘s ’The National Anthem’ and ’My Iron Lung’ from ’The Bends’, which earned one of the loudest cheers of the night.
“Alright guys, thanks very much for coming,” said Yorke as members of the audience screamed “thank yous” back at him, before Radiohead wrapped up the gig with second album title track ’The Bends’.
Source NME
