Thom Yorke brings back “Sail to the Moon” in Auckland

Thom Yorke played “Sail to the Moon” at Spark Arena in Auckland on Saturday night, third song in. It was the first time he had sung it since a Radiohead concert in May 2008, and the first time on his own since the Bridge School Benefit in October 2002.

It was the second of his two Auckland nights and the third show of the Everything tour, which opened in Christchurch on Wednesday. Radiohead last played Auckland in the same building in November 2012, when it was still called Vector Arena.

Rolling Stone counts the Friday's “Kid A” and “All I Need”, which closed the main set, as Yorke's first solo performances of either.

Graham Reid, reviewing that night for Elsewhere, called it an outstanding one-man show and an unpredictable one. Yorke barely left a patch of stage about two metres square among his machines, said little, and turned up on the screens behind him only rarely, and pixelated when he did. “Everything in Its Right Place” drew huge applause, “Fake Plastic Trees” came as acoustic folk, and a few technical glitches were shrugged off.

On the Saturday “Let Down”, “Reckoner” and “Lucky” made way for “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”, “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and “Airbag”. The last song of the night was “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”, which Yorke had never played solo before, alone on an acoustic guitar.

Setlists, Spark Arena, Auckland, 25 and 26 October 2024