Radiohead announce ten May nights to try out new songs

Radiohead have announced ten shows for May, two nights each in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Blackpool, Wolverhampton and London, to try out songs for the album that will follow Hail to the Thief. The band are still writing it, and the songs will be played as works in progress. Willy Mason supports.

For the first time, we have no contract or release deadline to fulfil – it's both liberating and terrifying.

Radiohead¹

The band wrote it in the statement that came with the dates. Hail to the Thief was the last album of their deal with EMI, and Radiohead are now unsigned.

Rather than wait 12 months to put out a whole album, the band will release songs for download when they are excited about them and the moment feels right. NME and Drowned In Sound both suggest a download-only single could appear around the shows.

After May come the summer dates, from Bonnaroo in Tennessee in June, so far the band's only announced American date, to both V Festival sites, Edinburgh and Dublin in August. General sale for the British nights in May opens at 9am on 25 March through gigsandtours.com, at about £32.50 before the booking fee.

A limited number of those tickets went first to W.A.S.T.E., the band's mailing list, at noon on 22 March, and the rush brought the band's website down. It was brought back, but some fans spent hours trying to buy, and Thom Yorke posted an apology. Sorry about the system meltdown. We were caught by surprise by the volume of traffic.⁴

Dates announced so far