Thom Yorke plays “Reckoner” by satellite for The Age of Stupid

Thom Yorke played “Reckoner”, from In Rainbows, alone on an acoustic guitar at the end of the New York premiere of The Age of Stupid on Monday night, appearing on the big screen by satellite. Gideon Yago, the MTV presenter hosting the evening, introduced him. Asked after the song if he had anything to add, Yorke said, The concept of limitless economic growth is now dead. We have to come up with another plan.¹

The Age of Stupid is Franny Armstrong's film about climate change, part drama, part documentary and part animation, with Pete Postlethwaite in the lead. It opened in Britain in March. Monday's premiere, in a solar-powered cinema tent in downtown New York, was its international launch, on the eve of the UN General Assembly's climate session. The evening went out live to hundreds of cinemas across the US and Canada, and goes out to the rest of the world, with subtitles, on Tuesday.

Yorke announced the appearance on Dead Air Space, the band's blog, on 14 September, promising “Reckoner” live from an undisclosed location after the screening and a discussion by satellite link. i've seen it and it stays with you- especially in light of the Copenhagen summit coming up in December⁴ So many Radiohead fans went to the film's website after the post that its server crashed. Armstrong wrote in her production diary that it was the biggest spike of traffic the site had ever had.