Radiohead bring back “Kid A” and “Talk Show Host” in Bologna

Radiohead played “Kid A” and “Talk Show Host” for the first time on the tour on Monday 17 November, the third of their four nights at the Unipol Arena in Casalecchio di Reno, just outside Bologna. Neither song had been heard since the last two nights of the 2018 tour, in Philadelphia. “Kid A” took the slot where the printed setlist offered “Idioteque” as the alternative.

All four nights sold out, to crowds the Italian papers put at 14,000 to 15,000. They were Radiohead's first shows in Italy since Florence and Monza in June 2017, and their first in Bologna since Arena Parco Nord in 2012, and they came between four nights in Madrid and four at London's O2.

The first night was the third Madrid show again, song for song, which Claudio Todesco of Rolling Stone Italia realised once “Lucky” began. The second opened on “2 + 2 = 5” and “Airbag”, and from then on the nights took the two sets in turn. On the third, “How to Disappear Completely” was back for the first time since the tour's opening night, and “Everything in Its Right Place” carried a snatch of “Harry Patch (In Memory Of)”.

The band played in the round, on a circular stage under 12 vertical screens, with Chris Vatalaro on additional drums and percussion in place of Clive Deamer. Thom Yorke said little on the first night beyond a few “grazie”, but after “Daydreaming” he asked the room in Italian, All good? Can you hear all right?³ The encore ended on “Karma Police”, with the arena singing its last line for a couple of minutes, and as the band left, text resembling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights scrolled across the screens.

The critics were split on that first night. Giovanni Ansaldo of Internazionale called it half a triumph, though he found a tour with no new songs odd; Andrea Scanzi of Il Fatto Quotidiano counted six or seven superhuman peaks among stretches that left him cold.

In town, two record shops hid a copy of Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009) signed by the band for fans to find and keep. At Semm on via Oberdan, which called its copy one of four signed ones in Italy, hunters went in small groups on the morning of the first show and had a minute each. Artists for Palestine Italia's Bologna group had called a demonstration outside before the second show.

The last night was the second night's set again, except that “Idioteque” came into the encore in place of “(Nice Dream)”. OndaRock heard some grumbling that only two songs from The Bends made the set, but the arena erupted when “Idioteque” began. Across the four nights the band played 43 different songs, nine of them every night, and never “Creep”.

The four Bologna setlists, Unipol Arena, Casalecchio di Reno, 14 to 18 November 2025