VENUE
CHRISTCHURCH WOLFBROOK ARENA, NEW ZEALAND
DATE
23/10/2024
At the climax of the opening show on Thom Yorke’s Everything tour, which finds the Radiohead/Atoms For Peace/ The Smile frontman playing Pacific Rim countries as a one-man band, he stands alone at the mic with an acoustic guitar and sings Radiohead’s Karma Police. It’s quite a moment. Delicate, hesitant, but ultimately rapturous, the song is greeted like the classic it undoubtedly is, but the reception sums up Yorke’s dilemma: the music that elicits the biggest reaction from his audience isn’t necessarily the music he wants to perform for them. “If this was a request show, we’d be here all night long,” he grumbles, making it perfectly clear that this really isn’t a request show.