Radiohead write to W.A.S.T.E. from their first sold-out US tour

The fourteenth W.A.S.T.E. newsletter, from the band's own mail-order and fan club, has a letter from each of Radiohead, written on the American tour, the first for OK Computer. Phil Selway writes that in its week of release the album went to number one in the UK, Ireland, Israel and New Zealand. The band, he says, are as bemused by its reception as anyone, and found the reviews very flattering if sometimes puzzling. Ed O'Brien writes, to have our first number one album was a bit like winning the FA cup for me¹

Colin Greenwood writes from Minneapolis that this is their first sold-out tour of America, played in old theatres and cinemas from a silver bus. Chris, the driver, has just brought it 1,765 miles from Portland by way of Montana. On that drive, Selway writes, the band stopped at a diner in Bismarck, North Dakota, a small crowd gathered, and as they left a girl told them they were the most exciting thing to happen in town since Angus Young called in for a club sandwich two years before.

Jonny Greenwood, dating his letter 6 August on a day off in Minneapolis, finds a city eaten by shopping malls, with meagre bookshops.

Thom Yorke's letter is the serious one. Finishing the album left them very nervous, he writes, and their world seems to be turning upside down. He calls the Tibetan Freedom Concert for Milarepa the most positive and emotional thing the band have done. He attacks China's treatment of Tibet and the Western governments that keep quiet out of economic interest, and remembers the Tibetan monks. such an incredible serenity and strength, i cried for ages¹