Radiohead play “Knives Out” for the first time on a surprise webcast

Radiohead broadcast a live webcast from radiohead.com on Thursday night and gave a new song, “Knives Out)”, its first public performance. NME say there was no warning beyond a message the week before suggesting fans download an audio player. The broadcast ran for three hours or more, into the early morning of 10 December.

Jonny Greenwood, billed as “DJ REQUIRED”, and Thom Yorke opened with a DJ set. Then, in Ed O'Brien's words, a last minute executive decision was made to play ‘knives out’ around the xmas tree.² They played it live and acoustic. NME expect it on the new album, which still has no title and is due in early summer 2000.

NME describe the rest of the night as the band playing favourite records, dancing, writing messages to the people watching and putting on a show with puppets made of socks. O'Brien, writing in his diary that night, calls it “amateur hour” and hopes it becomes a regular thing, different each time but with running items such as Phil Selway's puppet show. By his count about 250 people watched.

For O'Brien it was the band's first live performance in front of an audience for exactly a year, since Bercy in Paris on 10 December 1998. He was still elated the day after. There had been next to no planning, everything was done on the hoof, and he admits it was a shambles at times and sees nothing wrong with that. He would like to see more people broadcasting this way. it’s a bit like having our own tv station for three or so hours.²