Radiohead finish their first tour of Mexico in Pachuca

Radiohead play the Teatro de San Francisco in Pachuca tonight, the last date of their first tour of Mexico. At El Trastorno in Ojo de Agua, in the State of Mexico, about 800 people shouted for “Creep” on 20 October. Benjamín Rodríguez, one of the tour's promoters, remembers Thom Yorke asking them why they wanted a song about losers, and the crowd chanting “Creep” until the band played it.

The band's fanzine Pop Is Dead reported in May that “Creep” had reached number two in Mexico, behind only the Pet Shop Boys, and EMI Mexico paid for the band to come over, with the promoters La Iguana Internacional setting up the shows. EMI's idea was one show in the capital for about 4,000 people, Jonny Greenwood told the Guadalajara TV programme Generación X on the 22nd, but the band wanted to play all over the country. W.A.S.T.E., the band's newsletter, reckons them the first English band to tour Mexico at all.

In the same newsletter Colin Greenwood recalls unsafe venues, technical nightmares and swarms of mosquitoes. Camilo Lara of EMI Mexico, who looked after the band, says a man with a machete took all the money they had on them outside a grocery shop opposite EMI's offices. The plane to Guadalajara lost pressure, he adds, and in Guadalajara the van's brakes failed.

Both record-shop signings were packed, and “My Iron Lung” went into the Mexican chart at number 11. Thom filmed images for the next album's artwork, and took his camcorder up the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon. Jonny, a Clint Eastwood fan, bought a poncho and asked people whether they felt lucky. He also guested as a DJ on Mexican radio, where Colin greeted the listeners with a Spanish phrase he had been told meant good afternoon. It was obscene, and they left the station soon afterwards.

On the tour bus, the band fell out. We were all completely knackered on this Mexican tour bus, 12 of us, with six bunks and they were about 5ft 6ins long, so you're getting no sleep.⁴ O'Brien says things had been brewing and came to a head, in a band who never told each other their problems. In Thom's words, all the things that had just built up since we'd met each other, all came out in one day.⁴ They swore, cried and threw things around, he says.

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