Radiohead play career-spanning set in first concert since 2018

Radiohead chose Madrid as the location for their first concert since 2018, and kicked off a 20-date European tour with a crowd-pleasing yet unpredictable setlist drawing from almost all of their nine studio albums.

Were it not for Oasis, it might have been the most anticipated rock tour of the year. Radiohead haven’t recorded a studio album since 2016, and each of the band members has been involved in other successful and creatively stimulating projects, so fans were beginning to wonder if they might never hear from them again.

But there was excitement last year at the news the band had reconvened for casual rehearsals, then a frenzied rush for tickets when new shows were announced in September, and finally a rapturous reception in Madrid for this concert in the round.

With little chat with the crowd beyond the occasional “gracias”, the British quintet played 21 songs, opening with Let Down from 1997’s OK Computer and adding other songs from the highly lauded first half of their career including Paranoid Android, Karma Police, Fake Plastic Trees, Idioteque and No Surprises.

But while they didn’t shy away from well-known songs, it was no greatest hits set, bringing in numerous album tracks and drawing heavily from 2003’s Hail to the Thief.

An hour or so before the sun rose over Madrid, Francesco Puddu had staked out a prime spot in front of the city’s hulking Movistar Arena. He was among the first Radiohead fans to arrive at the venue, buzzing with expectations.

“I’m incredibly excited. Like, I don’t think it’s real,” said the 27-year-old, who had travelled from Italy. “It’s been so long that even if they play the same song 20 times in a row, I’ll be happy.”

The hours passed quickly as fans plotted where to position themselves in front of the circular stage, and revelled in the fact that they were among the privileged ones who had scored tickets for a tour that had sold out in minutes.

The war in Gaza was another topic that had come up throughout the day, given that the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel had called on people to boycott the tour, citing band member Jonny Greenwood’s 2024 performance in Tel Aviv.

The topic seemingly remains sensitive for the band: after the Guardian reported on the boycott call in September, its journalists were blocked from receiving tickets to review the Madrid concert. The band have not commented on the decision.

In Spain, where hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in solidarity with Palestine, the band’s actions had left some fans conflicted.

“It would have been nice if they had spoken out about it much earlier,” said Lola, 22, who asked that her last name not be published. “As a fan of Radiohead, I was a little bit disappointed. But at least I think they learned their lesson.”

She pointed to the incident last year in Melbourne, when the band’s frontman, Thom Yorke, briefly walked off stage during a solo gig after a pro-Palestinian heckler shouted: “How many dead children will it take for you to condemn the genocide in Gaza?”

It was not the right way to respond, said Lola. “I didn’t like that reaction.” In the end, however, the music had won her over. “I obviously can’t control what I feel when I listen to music … I really wanted to come and listen to the voices and sounds that I’ve been listening to since I was 12 years old.”

Yorke later released a statement saying the incident in Melbourne left him “in shock that my supposed silence was somehow being taken as complicity”, describing the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his administration as “extremists” who “need to be stopped”.

Before the European tour, Yorke told the Sunday Times that he would “absolutely not” perform in Israel. “I wouldn’t want to be 5,000 miles anywhere near the Netanyahu regime,” he added.

Some defended the band, citing their long history of activism. “They’ve always stood for peace, they can’t have changed now,” said Alessandra Fossati. “I think the people who know them, know that they are on the right side.”

Tuesday’s concert was to be the 50th time she had seen Radiohead perform, after becoming hooked when she first saw them live in 1995.

This time she had tickets for five of the shows: opening night in Madrid and every single performance in her home country of Italy.

“They always change from one record to another, they never do the same thing,” she said as she showed off her two Radiohead-themed tattoos. “I mean, I used to be a U2 fan but they kept doing the same things. And after a while you get bored.”

For some, the fact that the band had gone seven years without performing together had injected a sense of urgency into the new tour.

“There might not be another opportunity, Radiohead is pretty old at this point,” said Luka Arreaza, 20, prompting laughter from those waiting in line beside him. “So it was really worth it to come here and share this moment.”

The band, formed when they were at school in Oxfordshire in 1985, have become a byword for cerebral, atmospheric – and non-fans would say morose – rock music. They are still easily able to fill arenas thanks to a run of nine studio albums ranging from solid to utterly classic.

Their debut, 1994’s Pablo Honey, contained their breakthrough hit Creep, which has spent much of the last four months back in the UK Top 100 as the band earn a new generation of fans. Let Down, from third album OK Computer, also re-entered the charts this year.

OK Computer is regarded by many critics as the greatest rock album of the 1990s, though if anything the esteem is even higher for its follow-up Kid A, for which the band stretched out further into electronic music.

Their sixth, 2007’s In Rainbows (made available via a download that fans could set their own price for) is regarded as another creative pinnacle, but the band’s sense of adventure was clearly still felt on the albums since, The King of Limbs (2011) and A Moon Shaped Pool (2016).

Yorke has put out a series of solo and group albums, mostly recently with his trio the Smile, alongside Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar/keyboards).

Greenwood has found huge success as a film composer, earning two Oscar nominations for Phantom Thread and The Power of the Dog, and may get a third for the critically adored One Battle After Another, the fifth of his collaborations with director Paul Thomas Anderson.

Guitarist Ed O’Brien released his debut solo album in 2020, and drummer Phil Selway released his third in 2023. Bassist Colin Greenwood has been a sideman for artists including Nick Cave, and in 2024 he published How to Disappear: a Portrait of Radiohead, a book of his photographs of Radiohead taken between 2003 and 2016.

Another waiting fan was Sergio Zapater, who had arrived luggage in hand after taking a morning train from Valencia.

The last time the 53-year-old had seen Radiohead was 22 years ago. This time, he had arrived at the venue more than nine hours before the concert was due to start, certain that he would be the first in line.

Instead he found himself confronted by the fact that a new generation – one that seemingly did not mind early hours or queues – had fallen for Radiohead’s “evolved, elaborate, soul-touching” tunes.

“I was surprised to find all these young people here,” he said with a laugh. “How annoying, I thought I would be first in line because older people don’t do these things. But now I’m 25th.”

After four nights in Madrid, Radiohead’s tour will travel to Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin, concluding on 12 December.