Radiohead play two nights at the Hollywood Bowl and bring back “Creep”

Radiohead played two sold-out nights at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles on 25 and 26 September, with Supergrass opening both. On the first, Thom Yorke was left alone on stage to start “I Will” and paused before the words “rise up”, and a woman in the crowd shouted “Rise up, Thom!” into the silence. Earlier, Colin Greenwood's bass at the start of “Where I End and You Begin” had set off a car alarm.

On the day the Bowl warned that fake tickets were being sold on eBay and that anyone holding one might be turned away. Those who got in saw Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien walk on and beat out a drum rhythm that drew people from the beer queues to their seats. Yorke then came on in darkness singing the opening of “There There”, and the columns behind Phil Selway lit up yellow. Every song had its own colour, red for “Lucky” and green for “Myxomatosis”.

The first night ran to two hours and 23 songs, 12 of them from Hail to the Thief; only “A Wolf at the Door” and “We Suck Young Blood” were left out. “Lurgee”, from Pablo Honey, was in for the second show running, having come back at Shoreline on 23 September, and Yorke introduced it as an old song off their first record. Otherwise he said little beyond a greeting after “2+2=5” and a mumble about California's recall election.

Steven Mirkin, in Variety, credited Jonny with keeping the show alive, above all in “A Punch Up at a Wedding” and the closing “Everything in Its Right Place”, where his guitar and O'Brien's locked together. Darryl Morden of The Hollywood Reporter called “Lurgee” the surprise of the night.

The second night, with two places on the guest list auctioned for Amnesty International earlier in the month, opened with “2+2=5” and moved “There There” to the end of the main set. “Fake Plastic Trees” came into the first encore, and the band played the unreleased “Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)”, heard on this tour before at Red Rocks in Denver on 26 August. “Creep” was back too, for the first time since Columbia, Maryland, on 20 August.

Setlists, Hollywood Bowl, 25 and 26 September 2003