Thom Yorke on Eurockéennes de Belfort

Thom Yorke speaks through an interpreter, with the audio fighting him throughout. He likes the festival, both the line-up and the way the bill has been put together, and says the previous night and that night had been good ones, where the band could hear themselves and the music was swinging.

He tells of an attempt at something similar in New York, an anti-corporate festival that a lot of people were willing to play, the Beastie Boys among them, and which excited him because it was not the usual corporate fiasco. Choosing his words carefully, he says it did not happen as intended because certain people felt threatened by the idea. What took place instead was a stadium show, and the promoters lost money.

France, he thinks, has a tolerance for this sort of thing that England does not.