Radiohead begin four sold-out Berlin nights with only two post-2007 songs

Radiohead played the first of four sold-out nights at the Uber Arena in Berlin on Monday 8 December. Of the 25 songs, only “Bloom” and “Daydreaming” came out after 2007, and six were from In Rainbows. Jan Jekal, reviewing the show for the Berliner Zeitung, wrote that Radiohead had done something radically new for them by becoming an oldies band that plays the hits, and that an oldies show could hardly be done better.

It was a week after a throat infection made Thom Yorke put off two Copenhagen shows, though the band had been back on stage there on 4 and 5 December. Jasmin Lütz of laut.de found his voice fully recovered and outstanding; Ji-Hun Kim of der Freitag thought it short of its old brilliance and presence.

Sassan Niasseri, for Rolling Stone in Germany, named “Kid A”, played as a kind of dark folk, the high point of a great concert. He also found the setlist very good and predictable. Colin Greenwood had said Yorke gave the band 65 songs to learn for the tour, and Niasseri wanted rarities such as “Spectre”, “Faust Arp” and “Hunting Bears”; he asked whether any other superstar band ignores its biggest hit the way Radiohead ignore “Creep”.

The band played on a round platform in the middle of the arena floor ringed by projection screens. Chris Vatalaro played second drums beside Phil Selway, and Lennart Koch of tip Berlin saw Jonny Greenwood take to a third kit at one point. Der Freitag counted 17,000 in the hall. After the last song, the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights scrolled up the screens like the credits of a film.

Setlist