Well, the day of all days has come and gone. A few hours ago, at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, amidst a crowd reportedly featuring the likes of Spike Jonze, Rick Rubin, Dangermouse, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, members of Daft Punk, Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon), Muse (Matt Bellamy and Dominic Howard) and Rage Against The Machine (Zack De La Rocha), Thom Yorke and his brand new, yet-to-be-named collective, aka the one featuring Flea, Nigel Godrich, Joey Waronker, and Mauro Refosco, made their debut.
According to At Ease, the performance was not as short as Yorke initially suggested it would be, as the set not only featured a performance of Eraser in its entirety, but two encores, one solo and one with the band…
The band with Nigel Godrich, Flea, Joey Waronker and Mauro Refosco basically played Thom Yorke’s album The Eraser in full and in order. A solo encore followed with four completely new songs. It’s not clear how many of those are Thom Yorke or Radiohead songs. Thom played ‘Open The Floodgates’, ‘Lotus Flower’, ‘Skirting On The Surface’ and ‘Judge, Jury, Executioner’. The latter is also the alternate title of Radiohead’s ‘Myxomatosis’ (from Hail To The Thief), but several people have confirmed it’s a completely new song. ‘Skirting On The Surface’ is a song included on the ‘In Rainbows’ recording sessions, but was never played (or released) before. ‘Open The Floodgates’ has been floating around since Radiohead’s 2006 tour. The song was soundchecked (with drums) at Bayside in San Diego on June 27th, 2006 and never heard from again. Until last night.
Thom asked the rest of the band back on stage, played the Radiohead b-side ‘Paperbag Writer’ and closed the show with the two tracks from the new 12? vinyl; ‘The Hollow Earth’ and ‘Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses’.
And thanks to the wonders of the Internet, we, as in all those unfortunate souls who couldn’t attend last night’s performance, can check out some of the action. So far, videos of two songs, “Open The Floodgates”, and “Lotus Flower”, have surfaced. Check them out below while we scour the web for more.
Update: Added videos for “Paperbag Writer” and “Cymbal Rush”.
Update, Redux: TwentyFourBit has tons more.
“Lotus Flower” (New Song)
“Open The Floodgates” (New Song)
“Paperbag Writer” (Radiohead b-side)
“Cymbal Rush”
Setlist:
01 The Eraser
02 Analyse
03 The Clock
04 Black Swan
05 Skip Divided
06 Atoms for Peace
07 And It Rained All Night
08 Harrowdown Hill
09 Cymbal Rush
Encore #1 [Thom solo]
10 Open The Floodgates (New)
11 Lotus Flower (New)
12 Skirting On The Surface (New)
13 Judge, Jury, Executioner (New)
Encore #2 [with band]
14 Paperbag Writer
15 The Hollow Earth
16 Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses
