Radiohead tease a European tour: Is this the perfect setlist?
After last playing a live show seven years ago, it appears Radiohead are hinting at several dates in November.
As is customary with Radiohead tradition, the Oxfordshire Old Abingdonians have created a new limited liability partnership that typically precedes a new Radiohead album or project, and sparks of activity have been triggered elsewhere with the release of the How To Disappear photo book and their Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009) issue.
Respective bassist and guitarist/everything brothers Colin and Johnny Greenwood have offered positive statements at the supposed rehearsals, while frontman Thom Yorke has countered with curt statements to the ever-circling press overhead and eager fans who just want more and more, bluntly telling Australia’s Double J radio station last year: “I am not aware of it and don’t really give a flying fuck”.
Yorke’s been busy. Since Radiohead played their last show in 2018 at Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center, Yorke formed The Smile with the multi-instrumentalist Greenwood and Sons of Kemet percussionist Tom Skinner for a run of acclaimed records and high-profile shows. Surrounded by orbiting solo records and soundtrack work among the band, rumours of a seriously indefinite hiatus abounded.
Yet, the coy flyers list dates across November 21st, 22nd, 24th, and 25th, with London, Copenhagen, and Madrid namechecked, it feels less a cryptic clue and more a massive bludgeon virtually announcing a live ‘reunion’ of sorts. For the first time in Radiohead’s career, any such announcements have to contend with the plummet of public feeling surrounding Yorke’s mushy and apolitical statements on Israel’s potential genocide in Gaza, as plausibly determined by the International Court of Justice, following his on-stage tantrum at a Palestinian flag last year.
Still, while the newly formed RHEUK25 LLP entity continues to power the rumour mill like some Stanley Donwood-designed hamster wheel, we at Far Out have keenly considered just what kind of setlist we’d like to see. Without the pressure to promote a new album, Radiohead are free to spin a setlist that can soar across the entire spectrum of their oeuvre, weaving in and out between the hits and the fan-favourites, across their alt-rock counter to 1990s Britpop and the unreined terrain of art explorations that defined their 21st century.
Discounting the very real possibility that new material might be teased, the perfect Radiohead setlist will inevitably have to sacrifice one-third of the crowd’s most loved singles. What do you do with so many fantastic songs? To keep things interesting, several mammoth cuts have had to be shifted to make room for a smattering of fantastic B-sides begging to be dusted off and breathed new life, ‘Karma Police’ was shoved aside for the phantasmagoric ‘A Reminder, and ‘Knives Out’ was omitted to let ‘Fog’ work its contemplative magic.
The hefty Radiohead numbers are all there, however. Opening the affair with ‘2 + 2 = 5’ to get the blood pumping, ‘Daydreaming’ triggers a run of ethereal seizure, before electronically-coated urgency descends its divine gravitas from ‘Supercollider’, and rounding off the set with the wry ‘No Surprises’ singalong. To keep the crowd guessing, throw the ‘A Reminder’ B-side upon returning for their encore, then truly bid farewell with ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)‘s haunting coda.
The possibilities are endless, and will inevitably leave several songs off the set that everyone in the crowd desperately wanted to hear. But with Radiohead embarking on new shows simply because they feel like doing it, such afforded freedom may well shape a setlist full of pleasant surprises and unforgettable moments.
The perfect Radiohead setlist:
‘2 + 2 =5’
’15 Step’
‘There, There’
‘Lotus Flower’
‘Daydreaming’
‘Reckoner’
‘In Limbo’
‘How To Disappear Completely’
‘Supercollider’
‘I Might Be Wrong’
‘Idioteque’
‘Just’
‘Paranoid Android’
‘I Promise’
‘Pyramid Song’
‘Fog’
‘No Surprises’
ENCORE
‘A Reminder’
‘Creep’
‘Street Sprit (Fade Out)’
