Radiohead Announce First Shows Since 2018

It’s gonna be a glorious day: Radiohead have announced their first live performances together since 2018.

Confirming months of speculation, the band today announced a set of 20 European shows this fall. They’ll kick off with a four-night run in Madrid starting on Nov. 4, followed by four evenings each in Bologna, London, Copenhagen, and Berlin.

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“Last year, we got together to rehearse, just for the hell of it,” drummer Philip Selway said in a statement. “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.”

Tickets for the shows will only be available to fans who have registered at radiohead.com. Registration for this purpose opens on Friday, Sept. 5 at 10 a.m. British Standard Time (5 a.m. ET), and closes on Sunday, Sept. 7 at 10 p.m. BST (5 p.m. ET). The actual sale begins on Sept. 12.

News of the tour first surfaced on Reddit, after fans spotted flyers around several of the cities where the band will play. The news was met with equal parts excitement and skepticism from the band’s fanbase. “Radiohead are gonna walk onstage and Reddit will still not believe the tour is real,” one user joked.

The 2025 shows follow the band’s recent release of Hail to the Thief Live Recordings 2003-2009, featuring live versions of nearly all the songs from their 2003 album. The killer live LP was born out of Hamlet Hail to the Thief, the 2024 U.K. stage production that mashed up the Radiohead album with the early-1600s Shakespeare play. “I was shocked by the kind of energy behind the way we played,” frontman Thom Yorke said of the live recordings. “I barely recognized us, and it helped me find a way forward.”

Radiohead’s last tour, which concluded in 2018, was in support of their most recent album, 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. Since then, the band — Yorke, guitarists Jonny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien, bassist Colin Greenwood, and Selway — have kept busy with outside projects, including solo albums and film scores.

Yorke and Jonny Greenwood formed the side project the Smile with former Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner in 2021. They’ve released three Smile albums: 2022’s A Light for Attracting Attention and Wall of Eyes and Cutouts, both released in 2024. Earlier this year, Yorke teamed up with producer Mark Pritchard for Tall Tales.

Amid these non-Radiohead releases, fans have pondered Radiohead’s future, particularly after Yorke spoke to Australia’s Double J in Oct. 2024 and addressed the speculation. “I am not aware of it and don’t really give a flying fuck,” he said. “No offence to anyone and thanks for caring. But I think we’ve earned the right to do what makes sense to us without having to explain ourselves or be answerable to anyone else’s historical idea of what we should be doing.”

He continued: “I don’t think we feel the need to live up to anything. That feels like a non-problem. We are in this privileged position where we are still able to make music because of Radiohead, so no complaints.”

However, bassist Colin Greenwood revealed late last year that a private reunion had taken place some months earlier. In Dec. 2024, he spoke to Rolling Stone about his photo book How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead — and shared details on how the rehearsal went. “It was just basically to check in with each other, I suppose, because we hadn’t done it for so long,” he told us. “I guess it was also because I think maybe Thom and Jonny were going off to do some stuff [with the Smile]…. It was something we could all do cause we were all around that time. It was just really nice just to run through stuff… We ran through, like, The Bends. Kid A stuff. We ran through loads of stuff … We enjoy being with each other. So let’s leave on a high.”

That high is continuing with the new European trek; hopefully, North American dates are on the way.

Radiohead Tour Dates 
Nov. 4 — Movistar Arena, Madrid, Spain
Nov. 5 — Movistar Arena, Madrid, Spain
Nov. 7 — Movistar Arena, Madrid, Spain
Nov. 8 — Movistar Arena, Madrid, Spain
Nov. 14 — Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy
Nov. 15 — Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy
Nov. 17 — Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy
Nov. 18 — Unipol Arena, Bologna, Italy
Nov. 21 — The O2, London, UK 
Nov. 22 — The O2, London, UK
Nov. 24 — The O2, London, UK
Nov. 25 — The O2, London, UK
Dec. 1 — Royal Arena, Copenhagen, DK
Dec. 2 — Royal Arena, Copenhagen, DK
Dec. 4 — Royal Arena, Copenhagen, DK
Dec. 5 — Royal Arena, Copenhagen, DK
Dec. 8 — Uber Arena, Berlin, Germany
Dec. 9 — Uber Arena, Berlin, Germany
Dec. 11 — Uber Arena, Berlin, Germany
Dec. 12 — Uber Arena, Berlin, Germany

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