On film · at home with radiohead · 2021
Live in Gdynia, Poland (June 2017)
Jonny Greenwood had played Open'er twice without the band, once on a bill with Krzysztof Penderecki, before Radiohead topped its opening night.
2016–2017
the booking
Open'er named Radiohead as its first act for 2017 in October 2016, on the same day Glastonbury confirmed them, and the night fell five days after their Glastonbury headline set. The festival's stages stood on the airfield at Kosakowo. It was the band's third show in Poland, after the pier at Sopot in 1994 and the citadel at Poznań in 2009.
28 June 2017
the first night
They went on after James Blake and Royal Blood and played 24 songs, a set that Alex Flood of NME timed at nearly an hour past its slot. Thom Yorke sang in a long trench coat against a stiff wind and kept time for the field's clapping with sweeps of his hand. The running order had “Lucky” second and “Airbag” fifth, and “Let Down” in the first encore. There was no “Creep” and no “Karma Police”, which NME reported some in the crowd had wanted.
A month later, on 28 July, the film went up on radiohead.tv. It starts on the music, with no announcer and no festival logo, and the first voice in it is Yorke's. The band premiered it again on YouTube on 7 May 2021.
The second encore is the part of it to wait for. It opens on “The National Anthem”, the song in which Jonny Greenwood tunes a radio live on stage, and in Gdynia the radio found Polish stations. Flood wrote that the Polish national anthem went into it too. The night ended on “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”.
the film
Live in Gdynia, Poland (June 2017)· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources7
- Radiohead, “Radiohead - Live in Gdynia, Poland (June 2017)”, YouTube, 7 May 2021, youtube.com (the date, the setlist and its order, the running time, the 2021 premiere)
- John Earls, “Radiohead named first headliner of Open'er festival”, NME, 20 October 2016, nme.com (the first act for 2017, the same day as Glastonbury, five days after it, Kosakowo, Greenwood's two earlier appearances)
- PAP, report on Jonny Greenwood and Krzysztof Penderecki at Open'er, dzieje.pl, 4 July 2012, dzieje.pl (Greenwood on the 2012 bill with Penderecki and the AUKSO orchestra)
- Alex Flood, “Open'er Festival 2017 day one review: Radiohead, Royal Blood, Solange”, NME, 29 June 2017, nme.com (24 songs, nearly an hour over, the trench coat and the wind, the clapping, no “Creep” or “Karma Police”, the Polish anthem, Solange)
- Piotr Grabiec, “Radiohead Open'er 2017 Gdynia koncert”, Spider's Web, 28 July 2017, rozrywka.spidersweb.pl (the bill before them, the film on radiohead.tv, no announcer or logos, Yorke's voice first, the third show in Poland)
- DIY, “Watch Radiohead's headline set at Open'er 2017”, 28 July 2017, diymag.com (the release date)
- This site's show pages for Gdynia, 28 June 2017 (the encores, the Polish radio in “The National Anthem”), Sopot, 1994, and Poznań, 2009, and the song page for “The National Anthem” (the radio)