Introducing a muscular version of Just, Yorke explains that it was written “on a freezing cold farm in 1994”, in a period where they thought they’d only be remembered for one song: Their 1992 breakout Creep.
We all know the story ended differently, but the reunion does find Radiohead in a strange position.
This tour comes with no new material, and the last seven years have been so fertile with side projects, most notably Thom Yorke and guitarist Jonny Greenwood’s three albums as The Smile, that it seemed Radiohead’s members might have permanently moved on.
Several factors got in the way – grief, parenthood, mental health and rumours of intra-band tension over Israel.
As recently as August, Yorke said, external a reunion was “not on the cards from where I’m sitting”.
All of which makes the decision to play in the round, packed like sardines in a crushed tin can, all the more significant.
The group are symbolically returning to the rehearsal room, playing off each other as much as they are playing to the audience.
Yorke glides across the stage, doing that dance he does, moving from acoustic guitar to electric piano and back again.
During Idioteque, guitarist Ed O’Brien catches him mid-transit, and they holler the lyrics directly to one another. At the start of Jigsaw Falling Into Place, Yorke and Greenwood face each other and play duelling guitars.
It suggests the tour has been an act of healing, even if the band have been assigned separate dressing rooms for the first time in their career.
Whether that leads to anything more is still up for debate. “We haven’t thought past the tour,” Yorke recently told the Times, external. “I’m just stunned we got this far.”
The delighted fans who queued for the Tube home singing Karma Police will be hoping everything is in its right place for a fully-fledged comeback.
