Radiohead play “True Love Waits” on both nights at the Shrine

Radiohead played “True Love Waits” on both of their nights at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, on Thursday 4 and Monday 8 August, the song's first performances in America since 2006. Its last American outing had been in the same city, at the Greek Theatre on 30 June 2006. Until this year its only release was the live version on I Might Be Wrong; now, in a piano version, it closes A Moon Shaped Pool, and it has been back in the set since Paris in May. At the Shrine the hall sang the refrain back.

On the first night Thom Yorke said little, except once, before “No Surprises”. I have a great idea. [Why not] put a paranoid megalomaniac in charge?³ He named no one. The crowd cheered, and The Hollywood Reporter took the line as aimed at Donald Trump.

These were the band's first Los Angeles shows since the Haiti benefit at the Music Box at the Fonda in January 2010, and Outside Lands in San Francisco fell on the Saturday between them. Both sold out within minutes, and on the first night fans without tickets waited by the will call lines, some offering about $100 for a spare. The Shrine is a seated hall, and the audience stood through the whole of the two-hour first night. Shabazz Palaces opened both nights. Grimy Goods has photographs of the first night.

The first night began with a recording of Nina Simone saying that freedom means no fear. “Let Down”, back since Madison Square Garden after ten years, opened the first encore. The printed setlist had “Everything in Its Right Place” last, but the band swapped the final two and ended on “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”, then applauded the crowd back.

On the second night, when Yorke came back to the microphone after “Everything in Its Right Place”, the sampler was still looping his voice, and he laughed at it. Before “2 + 2 = 5” he reassured someone, in the crowd or on the stage, in an exaggerated English drawl. You're fiiine, everything's fiiiiiine⁴

Setlists