Radiohead open their first tour since 2012 with two Amsterdam nights

Radiohead walked on at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on Friday 20 May, for their first concert since Melbourne in November 2012, and played the first five songs of A Moon Shaped Pool in the order the album runs them. When the fifth was done, Thom Yorke told the crowd We made it.¹

Four songs later “My Iron Lung” came back, its first outing since Mexico City in March 2009. Of the new album only “Glass Eyes” and “True Love Waits” went unplayed, and much of the rest had never been heard live.

Holly Herndon, the support for the European and UK dates, played first, her screen reading “HOLY SHIT WE ARE OPENING FOR RADIOHEAD”. The band came on to Nina Simone's “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” and went straight into “Burn the Witch”, played in full for the first time, with the bass taking the line the record gives to strings. Jonny Greenwood sat at the piano for “Daydreaming”, which like “Decks Dark” had never been played live. On “Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief”, another live first, he played the orchestral parts on a synthesiser.

“Desert Island Disk”, “The Numbers” and “Present Tense” were all played as Radiohead songs for the first time. During “The Numbers” Clive Deamer, on second drums and percussion, played bells hung from what looked like a coat hanger. Yorke had to start “The Daily Mail” again because he was laughing, Pitchfork's live blog reported, and before “Weird Fishes / Arpeggi” he offered We're just gonna write some simpler songs. Too late now¹.

On Saturday ten songs the first night had left out came in, among them “Talk Show Host”, played for the first time since July 2012, and “Give Up the Ghost”, which was followed by a tease of “Creep”.

Setlists