“We do not ever want it to be like we’re going through the motions or we’re having to run on empty. We’re going to do 20 shows each year. No more, no less”: Radiohead suggest they’ll play short-term residencies in other continents

It looks like Radiohead’s recent run of residency shows won’t be a one-off and that the band have more planned. But not until 2027.

That’s according to no less an authority than Ed O’Brien, who in a new interview with Rolling Stone has said that the band are going to repeat the idea in other continents – in North America, South America and in Asia/Oceania.

“It’s definitely happening,” the guitarist explained. “What we’re going to do is, every year we’re going to do a different continent, and we’re going to do 20 shows each year. No more, no less.”

“We won’t do anything this year, but we’ll do something next year… We want to give absolutely everything each night,” he said of the 20-show model.

“We do not ever want it to be like we’re going through the motions or we’re having to run on empty. We’ve got to be able to do it. And you know what? We’re not spring chickens anymore.”

So looking ahead, and assuming that the band don’t get diverted along the way, Radiohead should complete what will surely be the slowest world tour on record sometime in 2029...

Radiohead – Everything in Its Right Place – Copenhagen (4 December) - YouTube

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Anyway, O’Brien says that for all the band, the European shows were a positive experience: “That tour was very, very emotional, very profound. We all felt that. We’d look at one another on that stage, like, ‘This is amazing.’ I feel like I’m the luckiest person on the planet, and I’m not just saying that.”

The guitarist has a new solo record out soon. Blue Morpho comes six years after Earth, which was released slap bang in the middle of lockdown, in April 2020. It was put together during a time when O’Brien was struggling with his own demons around 2021.

“I went into a deep depression,” he says of that time. “It was the first time in my life that I had to stop. And what I realised was that I’d been keeping busy, like a lot of people do, running from these ghosts of my past, particularly from my childhood.”

“From 1990 or ’91 through to 2018, when we stopped touring and went on hiatus, it was pretty much nonstop,” he says. “It’s all-encompassing and it demands your full attention, and it’s addictive in that way. But it’s not necessarily healthy, because you just keep going, keep going, keep going. And then when you stop, suddenly the ghosts catch up.”

His therapy, he explains, was recording the new album, which is produced by Paul Epworth and features an interesting cast of musicians, including UK jazz magus Shabaka Hutchings, Estonian composer Tõnu Kõrvits on string arrangements and his Radiohead bandmate, Philip Selway.

“It’s been a really beautiful journey,” he says of the new album. “This record has taken a long time, but I wouldn’t change it, because there’s been so much life in the record, and that has added to the richness.”