Live in Vaison-la-Romaine (May 2001)

the night that was rained off

The first time Radiohead were due at the Théâtre Antique, the Roman theatre in Vaison-la-Romaine in Provence, was 14 June 2000, the second night of their first concerts in 18 months. It was sunny until the soundcheck, when Thom Yorke saw the first dark cloud from the stage. A downpour flooded the stage and the roads and cut the power across the region, another storm was forecast for the evening, and the band's managers, Brian Message and Bryce Edge, called it off. In the early hours Yorke asked the message board to pass on the band's apologies to everyone who had come a long way, because the thunder and lightning had been “very, very frightening”.

We've spent all day drying out the piano with a hairdryer because all the keys had stuck together.

Brian Message · Melody Maker, June 2000

the second attempt

They came back on Monday 28 May 2001, two nights after the summer opened in the bullring in Bilbao and a week before Amnesiac. EMI France had promised the night to the trade live by satellite in 30 French cities. “Bones” and “Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was” came back into the set for the first time that year, both last played at Punchestown the October before, and the written setlist ended on “The Tourist”, which gave way on the night to “The Bends”.

The band put the whole two hours on YouTube on 4 June 2021, the day Amnesiac turned 20, and it was the last film of that spring's run. Of the 24 songs, the one to go back to is the end of the main set, where Yorke brought in “Everything in Its Right Place” with a passage of Peter Gabriel's “Here Comes the Flood”.