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Forty years on: Radiohead stick to principles to delight the cognoscenti

The Observer

|

November 23, 2025

Radiohead's singer Thom Yorke doesn't speak much during the band's long-awaited return to the UK stage on Friday. But when he does, it's to chivvy along whoever should be raising the electronic panels encasing the band.

- Kitty Empire

"Whenever you're ready," he quips. Radiohead's fans might well have aimed the same phrase at their heroes. Missing in action since 2018, when they concluded the tour for their 2016 album, A Moon Shaped Pool, Radiohead mysteriously crackled back into life, which might've been this year's biggest 90s reunion story.

As it was, 2025's ticketing meltdowns belonged to Oasis, and the joy of Radiohead's reappearance is a delight reserved for the relative cognoscenti. They are, however, sufficient to fill four oversubscribed nights at London's O2 arena and a European campaign. Oasis played a little-changing set list of around 25 songs; Radiohead a fluid selection drawing on 43 tracks overall so far.

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