On film · at home with radiohead · 2021
Live in Belfort (July 2003)
Radiohead went back to Les Eurockéennes on 4 July 2003, six years to the day after their first night there.
2003
Hail to the Thief by the lake
Hail to the Thief had been in British shops for less than four weeks, and the band had headlined Glastonbury the Saturday before. Belfort opened on “There There” and “2 + 2 = 5”, and six of the 19 songs were from the new record. One was “Scatterbrain”, back in the set only since May after nine months away.
The older songs had other music folded into them. “The National Anthem” carried a piece of “Hunting Bears”, and Thom Yorke began “Everything in Its Right Place”, the last song of the main set, with a few lines of Neil Young's “After the Gold Rush”. The night ended on “Karma Police”. At the end of it Yorke went on singing alone, and when he had finished, the crowd carried the song on without him.
2004–2021
the tape's long life
MCM, the French music channel, showed the concert at midnight on 15 June 2004 and five more times in the small hours by 5 July, and Showtime Next ran it in America that October and again in February 2005. In December 2007 Parlophone's box of the band's EMI albums came with a stream of the whole night, for a while, for anyone who bought it. Its “2 + 2 = 5” closes EMI's Best Of DVD of 2008.
In 2020 the festival was called off, and ARTE, with the organisers, began putting out concerts from its past. Radiohead's in Belfort was the first, on 4 July, 17 years to the day. The band put it on their own channel the next spring, on 30 April 2021.
the film
Live in Belfort (July 2003)· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources6
- Radiohead, “Radiohead - Live in Belfort (July 2003)”, YouTube, 30 April 2021, youtube.com (the place, the date, the running order, the running time)
- setlist.fm, Radiohead at Presqu'île de Malsaucy, Belfort, 4 July 2003, setlist.fm (“Hunting Bears”, “After the Gold Rush”, the end of “Karma Police”)
- NME, news item, 4 December 2007, nme.com (the stream with the box)
- Rolling Stone Italia, 4 July 2020, in Italian, rollingstone.it (ARTE's series, the cancelled festival, Radiohead first)
- The treefingers.com desk, posts of 5 July 2003, 15 June 2004, 24 September 2004 and 8 February 2005 (six years to the day, Yorke and the crowd at the end, MCM's airings, Showtime Next)
- This site's show pages for Glastonbury (28 June 2003) and Belfort, the song page for “Scatterbrain” (its return in May 2003), the release date of Hail to the Thief, the story of June 2008 on The Best Of and the page for the Best Of DVD