Radiohead play to 25,000 in Grant Park as Chicago tests park concerts

Radiohead played to more than 25,000 people on Hutchinson Field in Chicago's Grant Park on Wednesday night, and across Buckingham Fountain the opera could hear them. A Lyric Opera Center for American Artists concert of La Traviata and The Marriage of Figaro was on at the Petrillo Music Shell, and “Karma Police” carried into its arias. One opera-goer told Robert K. Elder of the Chicago Tribune it was like sitting all evening in front of someone chatting five rows back.

The fenced venue built on the field for the one night made it the first paid, admission-only concert of its kind on Chicago's lakefront. The Chicago Park District treated it as a dry run for its Grant Park Framework Plan, which would bring more ticketed concerts to the park over the next decade and in time give Hutchinson Field an amphitheatre.

The band had wanted to tour America in tents, as they did in Europe last year, and were told it could not be done. Thom Yorke told the Tribune by email that it got so bad at one point that we talked about forgetting touring in the U.S. until we could find a way to do it completely on our terms².

The band chose Arvey Field, and the first 16,000 tickets went in four minutes on 16 June. In mid-July the Park District asked for a move next door to Hutchinson Field, more than half as big again. About 9,500 more tickets went on sale at $37.50.

The forecast for the day was close to 95 degrees. Fans were allowed one sealed bottle of water each, and 20 ounces cost $4 inside. The Beta Band complained about the rule from the stage and told the crew to spray the crowd. At the gate a guard took a second bottle off one fan and drank it; the guards said it was a shame to let them go to waste.

Police called the crowd laid back and made no arrests outside the venue, and roadworks on the Kennedy Expressway were put back two hours to let everyone get home. A couple of hundred people without tickets listened from outside the fence.

After Kid Koala and the Beta Band, Radiohead came on at about 7.45pm and played for about two hours, 24 songs over a main set and three encores. “Lurgee” opened the first encore, and in the third Yorke played “True Love Waits” alone on acoustic guitar before “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” closed the night.

Setlist