Radiohead on Sideshow

Ed O'Brien opens in German, Colin Greenwood introduces the band, and the show, Sideshow, plays it for laughs throughout. One of them has a friend who saw three trainspotters at a London station in Radiohead T-shirts. The presenter wants to know why Colin looks preoccupied on stage, and Colin lists the hazards: Jonny spinning with a guitar, Ed arriving to shout at him, Phil Selway deafening him from the other side. Playing, he says, is like doing a crossword.

“You Never Wash Up After Yourself” is about coming home from a glamorous tour to find that nobody is washing up after you. On a rocker test they fail the leather-trousers question, though one of them almost bought some, and score on wearing sunglasses indoors. One of them recalls having a Rod Stewart haircut at the Brat Awards, between Justine from Elastica and Brett from Suede. With Thom Yorke out of the room, the “intellectual question” is whether the Queen or Barbara Bush would win a mud-wrestling match, and the answer is the Queen, given the infighting in the royal family.

It ends on the pavement in Los Angeles, with the band buffing Duran Duran's star, a privilege they claim only a few of Capitol's British artists are granted.