Radiohead release a live Hail to the Thief without warning

Radiohead released Hail to the Thief (Live Recordings 2003-2009) as a download on Wednesday 13 August, with no notice. It holds 12 of the 2003 album's 14 songs, in the album's order, recorded on stage in London, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Dublin between 2003 and the end of the In Rainbows touring in 2009.

The idea came from Thom Yorke's work on Hamlet Hail to the Thief, the stage production that sets Shakespeare's play to reworked songs from the album, which opened at Aviva Studios in Manchester in April and played Stratford-upon-Avon in June. Working out the arrangements, he asked to hear the band's archive live recordings of the songs. I was shocked by the kind of energy behind the way we played. I barely recognised us, and it helped me find a way forward.²³

For us, back in the day, the finishing of this record was particularly messy and fraught, we were very proud of it but there was a taste left in our mouths

Thom Yorke¹

, Yorke says of the 2003 album, in a longer version of the statement that some outlets carried.

The live record runs about 47 minutes and leaves out “Backdrifts” and “A Punchup at a Wedding”. Ben Baptie mixed the tapes and Matt Colton mastered them, under licence to XL Recordings.

A film of “There, There” came out with it, from the band's first show in Argentina, at the Club Ciudad in Buenos Aires on 24 March 2009. A single physical pressing follows on 31 October, on CD and vinyl.

It is Radiohead's first album since A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016, and their first release since the five formed a new partnership in March. They have not played live since 2018, though NME reports an unconfirmed rumour that they have put holds on dates in European cities for a run of residency shows.

Tracklist