Radiohead open the OK Computer tour at the Zeleste in Barcelona

Radiohead opened their new season at the Zeleste in Barcelona on Thursday 22 May, and before the last song Thom Yorke owned up to the crowd. This was the most nervous we've felt in over two years.¹ Then he thanked them, and the band closed on a new song, “The Tourist”. They never played “Creep”, and Ted Kessler, reviewing the night in NME, says nobody noticed.

EMI had flown in its international staff and key media for the two Barcelona showcases on 22 and 24 May.

The band walked on after the computer voice of “Fitter Happier” had played over the PA, and for a couple of minutes the clapping and chanting were so wild that Kessler wondered if the gig would have to stop. Yorke sang the opener, “Lucky”, into a wall of photographers' flashes.

Much of the new album got its first outing that night. Yorke sang the first half of “Exit Music (For a Film)” alone on acoustic guitar before the band came in. Jonny Greenwood, his arm strapped up to the elbow, played electric piano on “Karma Police”, and a glockenspiel was wheeled on for him for “No Surprises”. “Paranoid Android”, the current single, puzzled the locals with its quiet acoustic verses, Colin Greenwood and Ed O'Brien shaking percussion, before the guitars came in at full volume. It began with a few hesitant lighters and ended in a keen but very polite pogo, and Yorke allowed himself a grin. Kessler's high point was “Climbing Up the Walls”, with Jonny hammering out an Eastern-sounding figure and Yorke screaming into the front row at the end.

The first of three encores put “High and Dry” straight against “Electioneering”. “Planet Telex” came faster than on record, under strobes, with Yorke flailing his arms like Ian Curtis, and the crowd sang the choruses of the older songs.