Colin Greenwood recalls the first “Creep”, played to about seven people

Colin Greenwood, the ambassador for the first Independent Venue Week, has told Drowned In Sound that Radiohead played “Creep” for the first time at the Princess Charlotte in Leicester, to about seven people. Fortunately for us, the head of marketing at Parlophone just happened to be one of them.¹

He thinks it was 1991. The room has stayed with him better than the year, down to the sliding garage door at the side and the tatty sofa in the dressing room upstairs. Parlophone underwrote those early shows, so no promoter lost money with seven people in. He thanks the promoters who took the band on by name: Andy at the Charlotte, Paul Jackson at the Hull Adelphi and Mac at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford. At the Adelphi, a converted house, Jackson's deaf dog sat by the speakers through soundcheck.

The week runs from Tuesday 28 January to Sunday 2 February, with 18 small venues in the UK and Ireland each putting on a night. Sybil Bell, a friend of Colin's, founded it with PRS for Music and BBC Introducing, and asked him knowing he was not busy with Radiohead. Phil Selway backed it when it was announced in November. Colin has curated the Jericho Tavern's night on Saturday 1 February, with the Oxford band Glass Animals headlining.

The Jericho is where Radiohead, then On a Friday, played their first gig, on 4 August 1986. Colin puts it at '87 or thereabouts, and remembers supporting A House there, borrowing their backline and playing through an SVT bass cabinet for the first time.

It's all up in the air at the minute. Thom's just come back from touring Atoms for Peace and he's having some quiet time.

Colin Greenwood¹

He would love to be announcing an album and a year on the road, but the band are taking it easy at home. The tracks reported to have been recorded at Jack White's studio last year would need revisiting and finishing. The band work best when they are all together for a long stretch, he says, though “Lucky” was done in under a day at a studio in south London.

The two years touring The King of Limbs were a very good time. We definitely want to do it all again but we've just got to give it some time for the dust to settle.¹