Thom Yorke at Spark Arena: Radiohead frontman’s Everything tour is more than a broad retrospective

Thom Yorke performs at Auckland's Spark Arena on October 25, 2024, as part of first international solo tour, Everything. Photo / Ben Dickens

British singer and musician Thom Yorke is beginning his first international solo tour, Everything, with three New Zealand shows before heading onto dates in Australia, Singapore and Japan. His first of two shows at Auckland’s Spark Arena was held last night, October 25. It offered an engrossing mix of sounds that built in harsh and delicate layers to a stunning overall effect, as he chose tracks from more than three decades of music with Radiohead, The Smile and various solo and soundtrack numbers.

It would be a mistake to read into the title of Thom Yorke’s Everything solo tour, which kicked off in New Zealand this week, as offering up some broad, formless retrospective of his pioneering alt-rock catalogue.

For an musician of equivalent stature who can pack out stadiums as a solo artist independent of his career-defining band, such a tour could easily consist of a predictable selection of songs from different eras and favourable vocal registers, tied together by some superficial sonic tweaks.

But that word “everything” also signals grand ambition – something no one would ever deny the Radiohead frontman.

And last night at Auckland’s Spark Arena, Yorke delivered something that was unified in concept, but often intriguingly and gratifyingly loose in execution.

He did not exactly try to make the tracks flow, jumping between acoustic renditions of Radiohead hits and heavy electronic drum and synth numbers. But there was a complementary presence between them all.

The vocal register was also as pristine as off any 90s album cut. There were clearly no compromises in that department when composing a set list from three decades with Radiohead, more recent work with his band The Smile, and various solo and soundtrack numbers.

Early on in the concert, you realised how exposed someone like Yorke was, utterly alone on the wide Spark Arena stage compactly surrounded by his computers, synths, drum machines, piano and a selection of guitars.

Thom Yorke performing at Spark Arena. Photo / Ben Dickens

The second song, Let Down off 1998′s OK Computer had a quick false start. “It’s the wrong fucking verse,” Yorke blurted to himself, to laughs and cheers, as he began again.

The soft flowing tune was performed simply on an acoustic guitar. It featured an almost intentionally casual picking style, with notes delayed and added at his fancy. He laughed at one point directly into the mic at a false note.

Consistent with the entire concert, his next number Last I Heard (…He Was Circling Down The Drain) off Yorke’s most recent solo album 2019′s ANIMA jolted the audience. It had been ramped up from the album version with industrial, electronic drum beats that made the chairs reverberate.

Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box off 2001′s Amnesiac too had an extra dose of heavy electronic base.

Despite how alone he was up there, it was amazing how the diminutive 55-year-old’s act filled up the stage thanks to an elaborate light show across three large screens. Chaotic and repetitive patterns alternating in vivid colours splashed against a black background.

An undoubtedly calculated effect of this was that Yorke himself cast a dark figure for much of the set, wading in and out of the intricate lights. He was definitely not the focus of the production, which formed its own sensory experience with the music.

Then back into one of Radiohead’s biggest hits, Fake Plastic Trees off their 1995 album The Bends. An acoustic take and everyone loved it – especially the bloke a few rows back who insisted on singing it himself with Yorke, amid an otherwise silent, rapt audience.

I’m all for people having fun at a concert but this wasn’t a rock concert, and I didn’t really want some dude bending Yorke’s voice slightly off tune by his own emotional whining.

Anyway, we move on, and so did Yorke by again swearing and turning off the synth with a double take of the song Truth Ray off his 2014 solo album Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.

But the crowd seemed to relish the fact this whole production was just a little loose. There was a sense you were getting an insight into what Yorke is like just messing around by himself in the studio. Using his immense talents and experience to meddle with effects boxes and other electronic contraptions to reach a desired sound.

You would have to imagine that is how he conceived this solo tour: hours alone playing with various tracks, perfecting alternate interpretations, but still with a strain of improvisation.

Yorke’s version of Kid A off the 2001 album of the same name employed extra blurred synths to create a more dancey version. The high-pitched xylophone-like notes that formed the melody were somewhat overpowered by the synths, as was his voice.

Even though far less subtle than the original album version, it was still highly enjoyable. At worst, you could just say it was more tailored to a live setting.

Next was a Dracula meets Blade Runner-themed orchestral industrial track titled Volk with a menacing red light show as a backdrop. The music was taken from the score for the Luca Guadagnino film Suspiria, and the impact was startling.

Thom Yorke mesmerised the Auckland crowd with his talent. Photo / Ben Dickens

Shortly after this towards the end of the main set, one guy in the crowd yelled: “Play something eclectic and weird”. Surely a pre-rehearsed line but it got a good laugh.

Ironically, Yorke then launched into Videotape, one of his better-known tracks of the concert off 2007′s In Rainbows. The performance was very true to the original version with the melancholy beauty of its slow piano chords.

Another In Rainbows’ hit, Reckoner, followed with its distinctive finger-picking electronic guitar lick.

Yorke’s piercing and flawless falsetto voice reduced most of the crowd to silence, mesmerised by his talent.

A supremely enjoyable version of The Clock off his first 2006 solo album Eraser verged into almost electronic bluegrass territory with a dose of heavy distortion.

He got a standing ovation at the end of his first main set. His almost two hours on stage produced an engrossing mix of music that built in harsh and delicate layers to a stunning overall effect that almost numbed you.

But as much as the music itself, Yorke provided a fascinating insight into the state of his career and creative life as he returned for his encore.

For the first time of the night, he addressed the crowd to thank all the different people he’s worked with in his life: “Too many to mention but you know who you are…”

And then the subversive kicker.

“I f***ing hate working alone.”

Quite a statement at a solo show of a stadium packed with 10,000-odd people, who clearly didn’t object to the endeavour too much.

There’s been much speculation about a Radiohead return, with rehearsals of the whole band earlier this year after eight years since their last album A Moon Shaped Pool and a band hiatus in 2018.

There’s been much speculation about a Radiohead return after rehearsals of the whole band earlier this year.

But the release of three albums since 2022 with his band The Smile, made up of his Radiohead bandmate Jonny Greenwood and Sons of Kemet drummer Tom Skinner, has left many fans maybe slightly anxious when, and if, a Radiohead reprisal will ever happen.

“I am not aware of it and don’t really give a flying f***,” Yorke recently told Australian music outlet Double J.

“No offence to anyone and err, 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.”

Those fans at his first Auckland show should not have any reason to feel put out by such comments. There is no dimming of Yorke’s creative output, and from a live perspective it was a truly original offering. I enjoyed the experience more than seeing Radiohead in Melbourne more than a decade earlier.

The encore began with an expansive wall of sound version of Cymbal Rush, off Eraser.

Then tracks from the two albums that are perhaps considered Radiohead’s creative zenith: Kid A and OK Computer.

Everything In Its Right Place followed by Lucky.

It was, and we were.

Thom Yorke performs again tonight, October 26, at Auckland’s Spark Arena. Tickets still available through Ticketmaster.

Tom Dillane is an Auckland-based journalist covering local government and crime as well as sports investigations. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is deputy head of news.

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