The Smile play “Bending Hectic” for the first time at Montreux

The Smile played a new song, “Bending Hectic”, for the first time at the Montreux Jazz Lab on Tuesday 12 July, and Thom Yorke told the crowd how new the words were. Yeah I can see the words. That's good because I just wrote them about half an hour ago.¹

It came in the encore, after “The Same” and before “Just Eyes and Mouth” and “Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses”. In BrooklynVegan's account, Jonny Greenwood starts it with a slow, winding guitar figure, and the drums and guitars climb from there to a long, heavy climax; filmed that night, it runs to about seven minutes.

It is the fourth unreleased song the band have brought out on the European tour, after “Friend Of A Friend” in Zagreb and “Bodies Laughing” in Berlin in May and “Colours Fly” at Primavera Sound in Barcelona in June; the last two were both in the Montreux main set. On Sunday, two days before the show, the band's account posted a clip of “Colours Fly” from Barcelona, and Yorke answered it on Twitter. new one … work in progress … there are a few ..¹

New songs played on the 2022 European tour so far