Thom Yorke corrects the Sun on why Radiohead are skipping Glastonbury

Thom Yorke has written on radiohead.com that Radiohead will not play Glastonbury this year, and will do shows in London instead, at Victoria Park on 24 and 25 June, the same week. Not because of transport issues but because the festival goers at Glastonbury were more than likely sick of the sight of us¹, he writes. It would feel too soon to go back, as though they had only just been. They first played the festival in 1994 and headlined it in 1997 and 2003.

The question had been open since December, when the band's summer dates left Saturday 28 June, the festival's Saturday, free between Glasgow and Manchester. In February, according to Drowned In Sound, Jonny Greenwood told the BBC the band were talking about going, and Glastonbury's Emily Eavis said Radiohead would be back to headline within a couple of years, just not in 2008.

Then, at the launch of Friends of the Earth's Big Ask Europe climate campaign on 27 February, Yorke told the Sun the band were trying to play only where there was public transport, which ruled Glastonbury out this year. The festival's press office answered two days later that it was not sure what he meant. Extra trains always run to Castle Cary, and in 2007 coach tickets took about 7,000 cars off the road.

Yorke now says the Sun took his words out of context to make it about transport, and calls its owner, Rupert Murdoch, one of his least favourite people. Well that's bollocks… but these things spread.¹ What he meant was that a carbon study the band commissioned found the biggest surprise was how much came from audiences travelling to the shows. So the band try to play places fans can reach without a car, and to encourage car sharing, while accepting that they have to fly on tour where nothing else will do.

Emily and Michael Eavis sent Yorke the details of their buses and trains, which he found pretty impressive; he has apologised to them for the misunderstanding, and they are fine about it. He wishes the festival well, suggests the band might see everyone there in 2009, and ends on the Eavises. I wish more people were thinking as hard as them. Like the government for example.²

Radiohead and Glastonbury 2008