Radiohead take their new songs round Europe, ending at Rock am Ring

Radiohead finish their European tour at Rock am Ring at the Nürburgring today, a day after Rock im Riem at Munich's old Riem airport. These are their first shows since three months recording in a London studio, and they have taken a batch of new songs up through Spain, Italy and Switzerland to Germany. Three British dates with The Julie Dolphin follow at the end of the month.

The band rehearsed for three days in Seville and opened there on 7 May. Barcelona, two nights later, was, in the band's words afterwards, completely out of control, technology breaking down left and right, in short, the ideal Radiohead show.¹

A tape of Cesena on 13 May has the earliest known performance of “Black Star”. Six of its 11 songs are on no record yet: “Bones”, “Black Star”, “The Bends”, “My Iron Lung”, “Maquiladora” and “Just”. The next night at Biella never happened. The authorities called it off at the last minute, officially over the emergency exits, but the band later blamed Italy's right-wing government and reckoned that more likely they were worried that people were in danger of having a good time.¹ They spent three days in Florence instead, playing the Auditorium Flog on the 15th, and Ed O'Brien, in the city for the first time, told Sydney's Drum Media from his hotel that some of the songs recorded for the second album are great.

In Switzerland the Lausanne show on the 20th, part of Balélec, the student festival at the EPFL, went out on FM radio, with “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” in the set and “Stop Whispering” after the encore break.

Today's ten songs at the Nürburgring put “Creep” between “Black Star” and “The Bends”, with “Blow Out” as the encore. At the German festivals Thom Yorke found himself at the side of the stage with Neil Finn of Crowded House and Peter Gabriel, the three of them watching the Smashing Pumpkins. Radiohead's own 10am slot pleased him less.

European dates, May 1994