Thom Yorke's voice holds as Radiohead return in Copenhagen

Radiohead played the first of their Copenhagen nights at the Royal Arena on Thursday 4 December, three days after postponing the shows of 1 and 2 December because Thom Yorke had a throat infection and could not sing. Not one of the critics in the DR and Ritzau round-ups could hear a trace of it. Late in the show, after singing well through most of it, Yorke suddenly mimed that his voice had gone, then played a ballad. Emil Vammen, singer of the Aarhus band Zar Paulo, told DR's P1 Morgen he found it funny.

It was the band's first concert in Denmark since they played the Northside festival in Aarhus in June 2017. About 17,000 people stood round a stage in the middle of the floor, with Chris Vatalaro on percussion and drums beside Phil Selway and Colin Greenwood, and a pixelated white octopus on the hanging screens for “Daydreaming”.

Simon Lund of Politiken briefly wondered whether Yorke was really well, when his voice was lost in the rumble of the opener, “Planet Telex”, but by “2 + 2 = 5” the sound had settled. Over 25 songs, he wrote, Radiohead showed they were in a league of their own. He found a gentler band playing its big songs straight, as if it knew the audience needed comfort, and picked out a noisy “The National Anthem” led by Jonny Greenwood, “Videotape” and “Let Down”. Lund had expected a crowd that listens rather than shouts. By the end, people all round him had their arms round each other or up in the air, roaring along to “Karma Police”.

Politiken gave the night six hearts and Jyllands-Posten six stars out of six, while B.T. and Ekstra Bladet gave four. Thomas Treo of Ekstra Bladet found the band rather listless and was never caught by the music, though he still called them the new Pink Floyd. Kristian Dam Nygaard, who headlined his B.T. review an insane comeback, thought the band owed more from the stage to the people who had spent thousands of kroner on the lost nights and gone home without a concert, a thank-you at the least.

Setlist, Royal Arena, Copenhagen, 4 December 2025