Radiohead play a Swiss quarry to 20,000, with two-hour queues for a drink

Radiohead played the Carrière des Andonces, a quarry at Saint-Triphon in the canton of Vaud, on Thursday 20 September, their only Swiss concert of the tour. Close to 20,000 people came, and once inside, getting food or a drink took two hours: one queue to buy tokens, then a second, just as long, to spend them.

Getting there was no quicker. Roads and car parks jammed on the way in and again on the way out, and some fans reached the quarry more than an hour late, well after the band had started. Tickets had cost between 109 and 250 Swiss francs.

The Swiss public broadcaster RTS called the concert itself exceptional, and its critic Michel Masserey found it as strong to watch as to hear. Two huge screens poured out liquid, abstract images while a dozen smaller ones swung around them, and he thought the spectacle matched how varied the songs are.

Maxime Léonard, director of Caprices Factory, the company that organised the concert, admitted the failings in an RTS interview the next day. He named the car parks and the bars as the two big problems, and apologised to the audience.