Thom Yorke opens Latitude's last day alone, with a new song

Thom Yorke played alone at noon today on the Obelisk Arena, Latitude's main stage at Henham Park in Suffolk, opening the festival's last day. Halfway through he sat down with an acoustic guitar for a song nobody had heard. This is a new song, so you know – go for a piss.¹ It is fingerpicked over a circling figure. NME and Uncut's news desk give its title as “The Present Tense”.

The set ran about an hour and 12 songs, built up alone with a loop pedal as he moved between grand piano, acoustic and electric guitar, bass and synth. On “Harrowdown Hill” he played and looped the bass line, sang at the keyboard, then finished on a guitar a roadie handed him mid-song. For “Black Swan” he drummed the beat on the body of his acoustic guitar and looped it, having warned the crowd it would be a miracle if it worked. “Everything In Its Right Place” came on grand piano over a simple beat. The screens at the sides of the stage stayed off.

Of taking the noon slot, he said, I thought it was a nuts idea, which is why I did it!¹ He introduced “Follow Me Around” as a song that had been on the shelf for a while. Back for the encore, he asked whether anyone had seen Grace Jones, who had headlined the night before, and whether a G-string would suit him. “True Love Waits” was released only as a live recording, on the 2001 mini-album I Might Be Wrong. Before it closed the set, he said it was another song that fell off the shelf once and was still there.

Setlist