Radiohead open the British tour with two nights in Blackpool

Radiohead opened their British tour at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool's Winter Gardens on Friday 12 May, with a two-hour, 22-song set that held six unreleased songs. Introducing one of them, Thom Yorke said This next song has been kicking around for a while. It is called 'Nude' so don't get any bright ideas.¹ In the OK Computer days the song went by “Big Ideas” and “(Don't Get Any) Big Ideas”.

It was the band's first night in the ballroom since 7 September 1997. Many in the crowd, some from as far as America and Peru, had feared the British dates would be called off after the second Amsterdam night was pulled on 10 May for a sudden family bereavement.

The other new songs were “Bangers + Mash”, “Bodysnatchers”, “15 Step”, “Arpeggi” and “House of Cards”, all played on the European dates the week before. “House of Cards” went down best of them and drew a brief clap-along.

“Arpeggi” had its first full-band British outing, with Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien all on guitar, and ran faster than the version Yorke and Jonny played at KOKO in London less than two weeks earlier. In the first encore a keyboard was wheeled on for Yorke to play “Everything in Its Right Place”, and the band ended on “The Tourist”, not played since 2003.

Saturday's set gave “Spooks” and “4 Minute Warning”, first played in Copenhagen on 6 May, their first British airings, and Yorke is reported to have dedicated “How to Disappear Completely” to Hugo Chávez. “Go Slowly”, on Friday's printed setlist but not played, got its first performance, with Yorke at the piano. The second encore opened with another debut, “I Want None of This”, the song Radiohead gave to War Child's Help!: A Day in the Life album last year.

Setlists, Empress Ballroom, Blackpool