Colin Greenwood on Summer Sonic

Thom Yorke and Colin Greenwood are in Japan for Summer Sonic, their first Japanese festival. The whole year had been an experiment, Yorke explains: they had chosen festivals over shows of their own, wanting to get in front of very large crowds and find out whether they could do it, and so far he thinks they have got away with it.

They used to dislike outdoor shows, he admits, and had to get their heads round what was, for them, a monster. There is a run about their old reputation for bringing bad weather and the nickname that came with it, and relief that audiences have lately needed sunblock rather than waterproofs. A Swedish festival earlier that summer is remembered mainly for the flies.

Colin takes the question of why music this quiet in places works in enormous spaces at all. He puts it down to Yorke's melodies and the dynamic range of five people on a stage, which he thinks lets them play small and large rooms alike.

Yorke's theory of stage nerves is that blind terror is a far better stimulant than caffeine.