Radiohead's home-town Apollo show wins over NME's John Harris

Radiohead played a one-off home-town show at the Oxford Apollo on Sunday 12 February, with Supergrass in support, and John Harris, reviewing it in this week's NME under the headline “The Unforgettable Ire”, now puts them in the company of the great groups.

Japanese fans had been waiting by the stage door since the afternoon, getting excited whenever one of the band went past, and inside, parts of the crowd squealed as they recognised a song. Thom Yorke introduced “Prove Yourself” with This song's about Oxford, I s'pose¹, and Harris thinks he was lying this time, given the welcome the city gave them.

There were a lot of new songs, and Harris rates them close to classic. He traces the change back to “My Iron Lung”, out last autumn, and The Bends follows on 13 March. Jonny Greenwood played “Planet Telex” on a borrowed keyboard, its opening recalling the Who's “Won't Get Fooled Again”, and “Just” came across as the Beatles' “Dear Prudence” run through fuzz pedals.

The older songs had changed as well. “Anyone Can Play Guitar” had harsh, discordant edges, and “Stop Whispering” picked up spacey noises worthy of Spiritualized. Only “Creep” was played as it always had been, and halfway through, Yorke left the singing to the crowd, which Harris reads as a man who would like to be rid of it.

“You” came at the end, in the encore. As it started, the teenage fans at the back of the stalls screamed loudest, white light flooded the stage, and Yorke went into his bow-legged, jerking dance, like someone being electrocuted.

Setlist