On film · a member's film · 2025
Thom Yorke: Live at the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto
Thom Yorke alone with an acoustic guitar in a Toronto bar, two weeks after The Bends came out, on a tape unseen for 30 years.
1995
Nu Music Night
Radiohead were in Canada at the end of March 1995 to promote The Bends, which had been out in Britain for a fortnight and was a week away in America. The band played a session at the radio station CFNY in Toronto on 28 March, and the same day Thom Yorke went on his own to the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen Street, the club with the chequered floor in the Tragically Hip's “Bobcaygeon”, to open its Nu Music Night.
He walked on with an acoustic guitar, introduced himself as some bloke from some band, and offered the room some songs to help their beer go down. Four of the five came from the new record: “(Nice Dream)”, “High and Dry”, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and “Fake Plastic Trees”. He ended on “Thinking About You”, from Pablo Honey.
2025
the tape
Somebody taped the set on VHS, and it went unseen for thirty years. The day after The Bends turned 30, Radiohead put the whole 24 minutes on their YouTube channel, and wrote on Instagram that they had found the tape. With no reissue, the band were marking the anniversary with photographs and interviews from the time, and with this tape.
the film
Thom Yorke: Live at the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources5
- Radiohead, “Thom Yorke - Live at the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto (March 1995)”, YouTube, 14 March 2025, youtube.com (the date, Nu Music Night, the release of The Bends, the running time)
- Daniel Kreps, “Radiohead unearth Thom Yorke's unseen 1995 acoustic gig”, Rolling Stone, 14 March 2025, rollingstone.com (the setlist, the anniversary run in place of a reissue)
- CBC News, “Radiohead digs up rare footage of 1995 Toronto show”, 14 March 2025, cbc.ca (Yorke's opening words, the floor from “Bobcaygeon”, the Instagram post about the tape)
- Alex Hudson, Exclaim!, 15 March 2025, exclaim.ca (the release of The Bends on 13 March)
- This site's story of 14 March 2025, the show page for the CFNY session, 28 March 1995, and the album page for The Bends (out in America on 4 April 1995)