Manchester sings “Happy Birthday” to Phil Selway

Thom Yorke got the Manchester Apollo singing “Happy Birthday” to Phil Selway as the first encore began on Thursday 22 May, the night before his 36th birthday. The hall gave him a loud cheer, and the band went into “The Gloaming”.

It was the fifth night of Radiohead's run of small British and Irish halls ahead of Hail to the Thief, out on 9 June, and the set changed again. A taped “Where Bluebirds Fly” walked the band on, and “There There” opened the 23 songs with Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien on military-style drums. “The Tourist” closed the first encore, its first outing of the tour; in Edinburgh the night before it had been on the setlist only as an alternate.

Dave Simpson, reviewing the night for the Guardian, picks out two new songs, an angry “Myxomatosis” and an eerie “Backdrifts”. The Kid A pieces are exposed in a room this size, while the songs from The Bends and OK Computer still soar. He found Yorke loose and playful, far from his earnest public image. Did someone shout, 'Run for the hills'?² he asked after one of the noisier pieces. During “Fake Plastic Trees”, the last song, he sat down by an amplifier and listened along with everyone else.

Simpson calls it a band learning to be ordinary again, and names Selway its unsung star.

Setlist, Manchester Apollo, 22 May 2003