On film · at home with radiohead · 2021
Live from 93 Feet East, London (January 2008)
It was Radiohead's first concert with an audience in the room since Amsterdam, almost a year and a half before.
2008
from the shop to the club
On the morning of 16 January 2008 Jonny Greenwood posted on Dead Air Space, the band's blog, that Radiohead would play a short set of In Rainbows songs that evening at Rough Trade East on Brick Lane, free to whoever got there first. The shop holds about 250, and people were queuing by ten. By the afternoon the police and the council had advised against it, and the show moved next door to 93 Feet East, a club, for those already holding wristbands. Doors went back to 9pm and the screens planned for the street were dropped, but the webcast on radiohead.tv went ahead.
They came on at about 10.20pm, more than two hours late, in front of a few hundred people, and played the whole of In Rainbows in the order of the record. Nigel Godrich directed the film, which opened the band's second run of archive films on YouTube in April 2021.
2008
the false starts
The band fluffed the opening of “Reckoner”, and Thom Yorke laughed it off and blamed a bass note. A song later he tripped over the start of “House of Cards” himself and went back to the beginning.
Warts and all! Bum notes and all! That's why it took so long to make the record.
Thom Yorke · on stage, reported by NME, January 2008
He told the room he was glad they had not tried it in the shop after all, and thanked Rough Trade for putting up with the day.
After “Videotape” closed the album, Yorke came back with only an acoustic guitar and played “Up on the Ladder”, a song from the second disc of the In Rainbows discbox that nobody had heard on a stage since 2002. The other four joined him for four older songs. “My Iron Lung” drew one of the loudest cheers of the night, and “The Bends” closed it.
the film
Live from 93 Feet East, London (January 2008)· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources8
- Radiohead, “Radiohead - Live from 93 Feet East, London (January 2008)”, YouTube, 9 April 2021, youtube.com (the date, the running order, Nigel Godrich as director)
- Jonny Greenwood, “In Store!”, Dead Air Space, 16 January 2008, radiohead.com (the free set at Rough Trade East)
- Radiohead, “Change of plan”, Dead Air Space, 16 January 2008, radiohead.com (the move to 93 Feet East on the advice of the police and the council, wristbands only, doors at 9pm, nothing outside)
- Ace Cowboy, Hidden Track column, Glide Magazine, 16 January 2008, glidemagazine.com (the shop's size, the queue from about 10am)
- “Radiohead Play In Rainbows For Free London Gig”, Glide Magazine, credited to NME, 16 January 2008, glidemagazine.com (the start time, the false starts, Yorke's words)
- “Radiohead Bring Rainbows To The East End”, Uncut, 17 January 2008, uncut.co.uk (the encore, “My Iron Lung”)
- Matthew Strauss, “Radiohead adding more archival concert films to YouTube”, Pitchfork, 6 April 2021, pitchfork.com (the 2021 run, opening with this film)
- This site's story of 16 January 2008 and the show page for 93 Feet East (the last show before it, in Amsterdam, the single, the debuts, “Up on the Ladder” since 2002)