On film · concert film · 1995
Live at the Astoria
The film of the night went on sale on VHS the same day as The Bends, ten months after Radiohead played it.
1994
a sprained ankle
Radiohead came home to the London Astoria on 27 May 1994 at the end of a spring tour through Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, and Thom Yorke arrived in poor shape. He had sprained his ankle in Manchester two nights earlier, at the end of “Anyone Can Play Guitar”, and spent the next afternoon in a Wolverhampton hospital having it X-rayed. His voice was raw from festival sets in Germany the weekend before, sung at ten in the morning. After the Wolverhampton show, in the foyer of the band's hotel, he told Holly Barringer of Melody Maker what London meant to him.
It all just rests on me, and I've never been in that position before, not in Britain.
Thom Yorke · Melody Maker, June 1994
1994
the band that did "Creep"
He got through it. Eight of the 17 songs in the film were on no record yet. Early on Yorke asked the crowd whether Radiohead were the band that did “Creep”, then played it. Dave Jennings, reviewing the night for Melody Maker, watched it win the room over completely, down to one woman's voice answering the closing line.
Jennings came away sure the second album would be something special. He picked out “Bones”, “Black Star” and “My Iron Lung”, the last of which reminded him of Kurt Cobain. The encore pleased him less. He found “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” slow and heavy with keyboards, which in the film are played by Dianne Swann.
1995
on tape
The fan club's newsletter that summer said MTV Europe would broadcast the show in July. Brett Turnbull directed the video that PMI put out in March 1995. It went gold in Britain, and for several years it was the only live record of any kind the band had released. A DVD followed in 2005, and in May 2020, a day past the 26th anniversary of the show, the band put the whole film on YouTube.
One song from the night had come out before the tape did. John Leckie, who was producing the second album, was at the Astoria, and after months of trying to get “My Iron Lung” right in the studio he chose the take from that night instead. Yorke sang his part again and the crowd was taken out. It led the My Iron Lung EP in September 1994, and it is the version on The Bends.
the film
Live at the Astoria· Radioheadwatch on youtube →
sources6
- Radiohead, “Radiohead - Live at the Astoria (May 1994)”, YouTube, 28 May 2020, youtube.com (the date, the running order, the running time, the 2020 upload)
- Holly Barringer, “All You Need is Loathe”, Melody Maker, 11 June 1994, transcript in a fan archive, web.archive.org (the sprained ankle, the X-ray, the festival sets, Yorke's quote)
- Dave Jennings, “Wireless Is More”, Melody Maker, 11 June 1994, on the same page (the “Creep” introduction and the voice in the crowd, the new songs he picked out, Cobain, the verdict on “Street Spirit”)
- Wikipedia, “Live at the Astoria”, en.wikipedia.org (Brett Turnbull, PMI, the release of 13 March 1995, the DVD in 2005, the BPI gold award, Dianne Swann, the vocal and crowd on “My Iron Lung”)
- Andy Greene, entry on “My Iron Lung” in Radiohead's best YouTube concert moments, Rolling Stone Australia, 23 July 2020, au.rollingstone.com (for several years their only live release)
- This site's stories of 27 May 1994, summer 1994 (W.A.S.T.E. 7 and MTV Europe), October 1994 (NME and the My Iron Lung EP) and March 1995 (PMI and the release day), and the show page for the Astoria