On film · at home with radiohead · 2020
Live in São Paulo (April 2018)
Colin Greenwood took out a handheld camera at Allianz Parque to film the crowd, which had lit its phones without being asked.
2009–2018
back in São Paulo
Radiohead had not played São Paulo since March 2009, and Lucas Brêda, reviewing for Rolling Stone Brasil, thought the Allianz Parque bigger than the crowd they could draw in Brazil. The organisers counted 30,000. Brêda saw gaps in the far seats, with the top tier closed off, and the band got little help from the screens beside the stage, which showed abstract video rather than the band and went dark for whole songs. Stephanie Hahne, writing for Tenho Mais Discos Que Amigos, dated that blackout from “Idioteque”, the last song of the main set, and gave it about four songs.
2018
the encores
In the film the band streamed on YouTube in June 2020, the first encore opens on “Exit Music (For a Film)”, and the phones come on across the floor and the stands, nobody having asked for them. Ed O'Brien came back for one of the encores in a Brazil football shirt, and Colin Greenwood filmed the lights on a handheld camera. Hahne saw Thom Yorke and O'Brien thank the crowd at the end of the song, looking moved.
The second encore began with “Present Tense”. In “Paranoid Android” the phones came up again, and Jonny Greenwood broke a string in the last solo. The night closed on “Fake Plastic Trees”, in the slot Brêda said usually went to “Karma Police”, and there was no “Creep”.
Hahne wrote that the crowd left with their heads up and their eyes swollen from crying.
the film
Live in São Paulo (April 2018)· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources5
- Radiohead, “Radiohead - Live in São Paulo (April 2018)”, YouTube, 11 June 2020, youtube.com (the date and venue, the setlist and its order, the running time, the 2020 stream)
- Lucas Brêda, “Dedicado ao som, Radiohead explora pluralidade de emoções para 30 mil pessoas em SP”, Rolling Stone Brasil, 23 April 2018, rollingstone.com.br (30,000 by the organisers' count, the gaps and the closed top tier, the screens, the phones in “Exit Music” and “Paranoid Android”, O'Brien's shirt, Colin Greenwood's camera, “Fake Plastic Trees” in the place of “Karma Police”; in Portuguese, our translation)
- Stephanie Hahne, “Radiohead encerra passagem pelo Brasil com show catártico em São Paulo”, Tenho Mais Discos Que Amigos, 23 April 2018, tenhomaisdiscosqueamigos.com (the screens from “Idioteque” for about four songs, the thanks after “Exit Music”, no “Creep”, the verdict; in Portuguese)
- Isabela Alcântara, “Radiohead broadcast show 2018 São Paulo”, Wikimetal, 10 June 2020, wikimetal.com.br (the 2020 stream)
- This site's show pages for São Paulo, 22 March 2009 and 22 April 2018 (the last visit, the encores, the broken string in “Paranoid Android”), and the band page (Clive Deamer)