Radiohead will launch a European tour in November, ending their seven-year hiatus from the live stage. Speaking to the U.K.’s The Times about the comeback, guitarist Ed O’Brien shares, “I was nervous going into rehearsals because I was effectively over Radiohead.”
“It wasn’t great on the last round. I enjoyed the gigs but hated the rest,” O’Brien says. “We felt disconnected, f****** spent. It happens. This has been our whole life — what else is there? Look, success has a funny effect on people — I just didn’t want to do it any more. And I told them that.”
O’Brien adds that he went through a “deep depression” since the last Radiohead tour, culminating in 2021 when he “hit the bottom.”
“One of the things that was lovely coming out of it was realizing how much I love these guys,” O’Brien says. “I met them when I was 17 and I have gone from thinking I can’t see myself doing it again to realizing that, you know, we do have some stellar songs.”
Radiohead will be playing many of those songs during their tour, which will feature different set lists each night. Frontman Thom Yorke came up with a list of 65 potential tracks they could play on the tour, “Which we’re all frantically learning,” says guitarist Jonny Greenwood.
“Then Thom will turn up and say, let’s not do half,” Greenwood adds.
The tour will also feature Radiohead performing in the round for the first time since 1993. As for what happens next for Radiohead — new music, perhaps? — Greenwood replies, “I don’t know.”
“We haven’t thought past the tour,” Greenwoods says. Yorke adds, “I’m just stunned we got this far.”
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