Song · In Rainbows era (2007–09)
Open the Floodgates (Porous)
It took 16 years and a different band to get this piano song from a Radiohead soundcheck onto a record.
2006–09
soundcheck and solo piano
Ryan Dombal of Pitchfork has Radiohead soundchecking it in 2006, around the In Rainbows sessions. Fan archives also know it as “Porous”.
Thom Yorke played it alone at the piano at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on 2 October 2009, the warm-up show for his new band with Flea and Nigel Godrich, after the band had played The Eraser, his 2006 solo album, and left him the stage. He played it again two nights later, on the first of two nights at the Orpheum Theatre; on the second, “Skirting on the Surface” took its place.
2022
the smile
The Smile, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood with the drummer Tom Skinner, played it at their first shows in front of an audience, at Magazine London, a new venue on the Greenwich Peninsula, at the end of January 2022. It came out that May on their first album, A Light for Attracting Attention, produced by Godrich.
sources4
- The site's own catalogue note, based on fan archives, for the other title.
- Ryan Dombal, review of A Light for Attracting Attention, Pitchfork, 12 May 2022, for the 2006 soundcheck (as gathered in this site's news file
_data/news/2022/the-smile-a-light-for-attracting-attention-reviews.md). - This site's news archive, “Thom Yorke's band with Flea plays its first show, at the Echoplex” (2 October 2009) and “Thom Yorke's new band play The Eraser at LA's Orpheum” (5 October 2009), for the solo performances.
- Michael Astley-Brown, Guitar World, 31 January 2022, for the Magazine shows (via this site's news file
_data/news/2022/the-smile-first-live-shows-magazine-london-2022.md).