Thom Yorke: Live at the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto

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”, the quiet acoustic song from Pablo Honey.

the tape

Somebody taped it on VHS. Thirty years later, the day after The Bends turned 30, Radiohead put the whole 24 minutes on their YouTube channel, saying only that they had found the tape. The band were marking the anniversary with photographs and interviews from the time instead of a reissue, and this was the centrepiece.