Radiohead open with “The Gloaming” in New Orleans

Radiohead opened their show at a sold-out UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans on Thursday 2 October with “The Gloaming”, went straight into “There There”, and ended with “Everything in Its Right Place”. “Knives Out” and “Climbing Up the Walls” both came back, neither having been played at a concert since Maryland Heights, Missouri, on 24 August. Nine of the 23 songs were from Hail to the Thief, and most of the rest came evenly from OK Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac. The Bends supplied only two.

The Times-Picayune's reviewer admits that the band's recent records can leave a listener cold, and that Thom Yorke's lyrics are hard to follow when he bunches up or stretches the words. On the night, though, he puts Radiohead where U2 stood in their Achtung Baby years, the most daring band in the arenas, without leaning on obvious anthems. To the reviewer, “My Iron Lung” went from calm to planned chaos, and “Fake Plastic Trees” was a highlight for the heartbreak in Yorke's voice and the swell of the band behind it.