Radiohead, Old Trafford Cricket Club, gig review: Jubilant in a way rarely associated with the band

The deployment of a rare track set the band's only UK headline gig of the year apart

Radiohead in concert at Old Trafford LCCC, Manchester (Rex)

“We’ve got a special treat for you” says Thom Yorke deep into the second encore of Radiohead’s only UK headline gig of the year. Once upon a time this statement would have been met with collective eyebrow raising, given that the Oxford band’s idea of what constitutes a treat has seldom matched with large swathes of a fanbase that has loyally stuck with Radiohead’s career no matter what idiosyncratic course it took.

But having just thrown one surprise in the form of beautiful 20-year-old B-side “I Promise”, Yorke was good to his word: the crunching riff of 1995’s “The Bends” strikes up to sheer disbelief, and no little delirium. You do hope the guy who took that “Play The Fucking Bends” flag to Glastonbury made the trip to an overcast Manchester.

That Radiohead dusting off one of their most beloved tracks is so unexpected tells you all about the unique position they hold in the echelons of rock music. When most bands 25 years into their career have no choice but to fall back on former glories, Radiohead have the luxury of cherry picking from them. Their constant evolution has left their peers behind, allowing them artistic licence to pluck from their various incarnations at will. It is hard to think of another act that could play something as ghostly and desolate as “Pyramid Song” in the middle of an outdoor stadium gig without being drowned out by the stampede for the bar.

But perhaps the idea of Radiohead as bloody-minded contrarians needs to put out to pasture. Whether the 20th anniversary reissue of OK Computer has rekindled their affections for older material is hard to say, but Radiohead seem to have reconciled with a past they have so determinedly tried to outrun. As with that Glastonbury headline show, divisive though it was, the set is loaded with the anthems. Played joyfully - by no means always the case - the results are jubilant in a way rarely associated with Radiohead: the future-prog of “Paranoid Android” sees a wave of air-guitar playing; a field in tens of thousands falls pin drop silent for the simple beauty of “Fake Plastic Trees”; the lyric disparaging the Government in the flatly gorgeous lullaby “No Surprises” secures one of the biggest cheers of the night (and inspires an impromptu Jeremy Corbyn chant). The refrain from the closing “Karma Police” is sang long after the lights have come up.

But the scale of Radiohead’s repertoire is unparalleled. Yes, post-millennium material can be challenging (the glitchy “Identikit”) and, on occasion, maddening, as the aimless clatter of “Bloom” proves. And you can see why some might at times feel alienated: following the skyscraping guitars of “Airbag”, the skittish beat of “15 Step” could be the work of an entirely different band.

But even if Yorke is in subdued mood, saying little and failing to reference the Manchester terrorist attack that resulted in tonight’s change of venue, the band’s ingenuity is breathtaking. “Nude” is a slow reveal of romantic beauty, “Ful Stop”, from last year’s A Moon Shaped Pool, forcefully propulsive. The manner in which the impossibly youthful Jonny Greenwood thrashes at his guitar during “Bodysnatchers” one minute and gets to his knees to send “Everything in its Right Place” into an Aphex Twin-sized acid orbit the next is, like Radiohead themselves, as audacious as it is awe-inspiring.