The band performed the Amnesiac song for the first time in seven years
After much wishful thinking, Radiohead performed “Like Spinning Plates” during their last show at the O2 in London on Tuesday. The band closed out their four-show run in the city, surprising lucky fans to the Amnesiac track and giving the song its debut on their reunion tour.
“Like Spinning Plates” was built over the backing track of an early recording of “I Will” (which later appeared on 2003’s Hail to the Thief), run in reverse. “We’d turned the tape around, and I was in another room, heard the vocal melody coming backwards, and thought, ‘That’s miles better than the right way round,’ then spent the rest of the night trying to learn the melody,” Thom Yorke told The Wire in a 2001 interview, per Citizen Insane.
Fans have responded accordingly to Tuesday’s performance, with one attendee on X declaring, “wtf do you mean i just heard like spinning plates live??????”
Earlier this month, Radiohead performed both “Kid A” and “Talk Show Host” for the first time since 2018 at the Unipol Arena in Bologna, Italy. The band previously broke out Amnesiac songs tracks “You and Whose Army” and “Pyramid Song” during their current trek.
After months of speculation, Radiohead announced their reunion back in September — their first live performances together since 2018. The European run kicked off with four nights in Madrid, followed by four evenings each in Bologna and London, and soon Copenhagen and Berlin in December.
“Last year, we got together to rehearse, just for the hell of it,” drummer Philip Selway said in a statement at the time. “After a seven-year pause, it felt really good to play the songs again and reconnect with a musical identity that has become lodged deep inside all five of us. It also made us want to play some shows together, so we hope you can make it to one of the upcoming dates. For now, it will just be these ones but who knows where this will all lead.”
