Live at Summer Sonic (August 2016)

an extra encore

Summer Sonic splits its bill between two cities, and the Tokyo half is held in Chiba, at the ballpark of the Chiba Lotte Marines. When Radiohead last played the festival, in August 2003, they ended the Tokyo night with “Creep”, an extra encore that was not on the written setlist and the song's first outing in over a year.

the same ballpark

Thirteen years later they were back on 21 August 2016, at the same ground under a sponsor's name, QVC Marine Field, in front of a crowd Dan Grunebaum of Metropolis put at over 30,000. He found that many of them did not yet know A Moon Shaped Pool, out since May. “Burn the Witch” went down politely, and he saw the older songs set the stadium going, “The National Anthem” and “Creep” most of all. Thom Yorke kept his talk to an occasional “dozo”, Japanese for “please” or “go ahead”. Grunebaum came away thinking the band belonged in a big open space like this one more than in a pair of headphones.

“Airbag”, the first song on OK Computer, was in the set too, on one of only six nights it was played that year. There was one encore and no second, six songs from “Let Down” to “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”, with “Creep” fourth. WOWOW, the Japanese broadcaster the film thanks, aired the whole set uncut that November, “Creep” included, and the band's own premiere of it, in May 2020, was set for ten at night in Japan.