Live review: Radiohead deliver visceral, vital and compelling career retrospective at The O2 in London
Radiohead played the third of four concerts at The O2 Arena in London on Monday night (24.11.25).
It has been eight years since Radiohead's last shows in the UK so the band's surprise announcement in September that they would be performing live again with four dates in London and a host dates in Europe was greeted with the excitement and anticipation deserving of a band as unique and vital as them.
On Monday night (24.11.25), they played the third of four nights at The O2 and gave the sold-out crowd what is the closest thing to a Radiohead greatest hits set, proving why they are still one of the most vital and important bands around.
Radiohead are playing their 2025 shows 'in the round', a centrally situated stage which is contained in a black cylinder similar to a Zoetrope, a pre-film animation device made popular as a toy in Victorian times. The surrounding scrim displays videos, graphics and lights and perfectly matches the band's music.
Frontman Thom Yorke and his bandmates - guitarist Ed O'Brien, bassist Colin Greenwood, drummer Philip Selway and guitarist-and-keyboardist Jonny Greenwood, aided by auxiliary drummer Chris Vatalaro - open with Planet Telex from their acclaimed second album The Bends. Released in 1995 it made Radiohead the art rock alternative to Oasis' Britpop swagger and the band's decision to open with a track from that LP earns universal cheers of approval from fans.
Radiohead opened their third night at The O2 with Planet Telex
The advantage of Radiohead being 'in the round' is that it gives the arena show a sense of intimacy, the band as a collective are close to one another as they play and the crowd surrounds and gives the show and the songs a fresh approach.
For these winter shows, Radiohead rehearsed over 70 songs and no set has been the same, and the guessing game keeps fans on their toes and on the edge of their seats.
The set is comprised of tracks from across Radiohead's three-decade spanning career and of their nine records only 1993 debut album Pablo Honey is not represented - even when the Oxfordshire band are playing their hits there is still no room for Creep.
Planet Telex is followed by a raft of songs from 2003's Hail to the Thief - 2 + 2 = 5, Sit Down. Stand Up and The Gloaming - punctuated by Lucky, the first song from their seminal 1997 LP OK Computer.
The band follow-up with No Surprises, Fishes/Arpeggi, Everything in Its Right Place, The National Anthem - the Kid A era songs becoming more poignant in 2025 as the onslaught of technology takes away from the human condition.
A pogoing ball of energy at times, Yorke, 57, does not address the crowd other than a simple "thank you" after Videotape.
Those surrounding the stage get to the band at the height of their performing powers, as the musicians move spots throughout the concert allowing fans to see and hear Thom back his haunting falsetto voice with his piano playing, or his intricate acoustic guitar parts.
The first part of the show ends with Bodysnatchers - from seventh studio album In Rainbows - before the band deliver a majestic seven-song encore.
Radiohead performing 'in the round'
Their 1995 single Fake Plastic Trees provides a genuine singalong moment, something not always associated with Radiohead, and Paranoid Android is another standout song. The two hits punctuated by Jigsaw Falling Into Place.
All I Need and You and Whose Army? follow before Radiohead's musical time machine travels back to the '90s again for Just and Karma Police.
What comes next for Radiohead, we don't know.
Yorke - who performs in side project The Smile with Jonny - has said the band have "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".
If that means the band continue to reunite for shows when the mood takes them no one will be complaining.
Radiohead at The O2 - November 24 - setlist:
Planet Telex
2 + 2 = 5
Sit Down. Stand Up.
Lucky
15 Step
The Gloaming
Kid A
No Surprises
Videotape
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
Idioteque
Everything in Its Right Place
Bloom
The National Anthem
Daydreaming
Let Down
Climbing Up the Walls
Bodysnatchers
Encore:
Fake Plastic Trees
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Paranoid Android
All I Need
You and Whose Army?
Just
Karma Police
