Song · Live covers
Wonderwall
A month after “Wonderwall” beat “Just” at the Brits, Thom Yorke sent it up on Canadian radio.
1995–96
the other band's anthem
Noel Gallagher wrote it for Oasis's (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, and Creation released it on 30 October 1995 as the album's fourth single. He described it as being about “an imaginary friend who's gonna come and save you from yourself”, and took the title from George Harrison's Wonderwall Music. It reached number two at home and number eight in America, still Oasis's only top-40 single on the Hot 100, and in October 2020 it became the first song of the 1990s to pass a billion streams on Spotify.
At the Brit Awards at Earls Court on 19 February 1996, Oasis beat Radiohead in all three categories Radiohead were up for, and Nigel Dick's “Wonderwall” video took British Video over “Just”.
23 mar 1996
vancouver
A month later, on the day of Radiohead's show in Vancouver, Thom Yorke went alone with an acoustic guitar to CBC radio's Real Time in Vancouver. After “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” and “Killer Cars”, Ken Stringfellow of the Posies joined him for a mocking go at “Wonderwall”. They gave up after the first chorus, and Yorke agreed on air that it had been abysmal.
It's always good to make fun of Oasis, though.
thom yorke · cbc real time, 23 march 1996
on stage
Live, 1993.· Radiohea_dwatch on youtube →
Live history
| Times played | 1 show |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Saturday 23 March 1996 · Vancouver |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
sources5
- Wikipedia, “Wonderwall”, for the Oasis single's history and chart placings.
- Stereogum, on Radiohead's live cover.
- The site's news archive, 19 February 1996, for the Brit Awards.
- The site's news archive, 23 March 1996, for the CBC session, drawing on two off-air recordings on the Internet Archive and Far Out, 10 September 2022.
- Performance date from this site's own setlist archive.