Radiohead to play 21 arena shows in Australia and Japan in 2027

Radiohead will play 21 arena shows in 2027, 16 in Australia in May and early June and five in Japan in June, and the band say that is the whole year. There will be no extra dates announced. These are the only shows that Radiohead will be playing in 2027.² They hope to play elsewhere in future. The news comes a week after QR-coded postcards started turning up in Melbourne, then in Perth and Sydney.

Each city gets one arena for its whole run, four nights in Perth and six each in Melbourne and Sydney. It is the band's first time in Australia since The King of Limbs tour in November 2012. The Japanese nights are at GMO Arena Saitama, which under its old name, Saitama Super Arena, held two nights of Radiohead's last headline run in Japan, in October 2008. Their last visit was to headline Summer Sonic in 2016.

Ed O'Brien said in March that the plan was a different continent and 20 shows each year, so the band have gone one over. Last year's 20 nights in five European cities were their first since 2018. No new album has been announced, and O'Brien has told NME the band have not talked about one.

There is no general sale in Australia. To keep out bots and scalpers, fans register with Frontier Touring, the promoter, and in Japan tickets are sold through an eplus lottery. Every Australian ticket carries A$2 for Greenpeace Australia Pacific and the Australian Marine Conservation Society, and every Japanese one ¥200 for the forest charity More Trees. Radiohead match both.

The dearest ticket, a “Fast Track Status” package at A$649 or ¥59,800, buys an SS seat, early entry to the merchandise stand and items designed by Stanley Donwood & Doktor Tchock, with their customary attention to irrelevance²⁵. The band's blurb also promises a light application of sarcasm²⁵, and admits there is still no Business Lounge.

New Zealand is not on the list. Stuff called it a snub, and Chris Schulz wrote in his newsletter Boiler Room that he had been through the Radiohead racks at Real Groovy in Auckland looking for a flyer and found nothing.

The 2027 dates