Radiohead plan small August shows to try out new songs

Radiohead are thinking of spending about three weeks next August playing shows to work new songs out on stage, they tell The Face. The shows lead towards a sixth album, which the band want out at the start of 2003. They are taking a break after the world tour for Amnesiac, and have tentatively begun work on new songs, some of them already played at the later shows of the tour.

Glastonbury had been cancelled in 2001, and on 31 August, at his thank-you show for the villagers of Pilton, its organiser Michael Eavis told NME whom he hoped to see at the top of the 2002 bill. I'm a good old favourite of Radiohead, so I would like to see them headline next year.²

Asked whether the band would play big summer shows such as next year's Glastonbury, Ed O'Brien said he wasn't allowed to say. The idea is that we don't want to do anything big. The idea is to be pretty self-indulgent – that means we'll play new material.¹ And I don't think playing Glastonbury, or any festival, is conducive to that.¹