Radiohead end their American tour at the Palace on a new acoustic song

Radiohead played their last American date of the summer tour) at the Palace in Los Angeles on Thursday 15 June, and ended it with Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood alone on a new acoustic song, “Subterranean Homesick Alien”. The two had played it as a duo at the Metro in Chicago five nights earlier. The band went on to Japan, where their tour opened in Tokyo on Sunday.

Sandy Masuo, reviewing the show in Saturday's Los Angeles Times, had expected the band of the photographs and videos, with Yorke the airy figure who rides a trolley through a surreal supermarket in the “Fake Plastic Trees” video. She got a gritty, down-to-earth set instead, the neat guitar layers of the records gone rough, and was glad of it. She found Yorke as compelling to watch as to hear.

Troy J. Augusto, in today's Variety, puts the show at 100 minutes to a nearly full house. He rates Radiohead the one band of the hyped British wave since shoegazing to beat the second-album slump. He picks out “High and Dry”, “Planet Telex” and “Fake Plastic Trees”, and Jonny Greenwood switching between gentle acoustic strumming and big power chords. The Bends has been slow to sell in America, he notes, and he expects that to change.

Setlist, the Palace, Los Angeles, 15 June 1995