Radiohead have announced their first tour in seven years, after teasing it with a series of mysterious flyers that appeared in cities across Europe.
The revered band will play four nights at London’s O2 Arena on 21, 22, 24 and 25 November 2025, with other dates in Berlin, Bologna, Copenhagen and Madrid.
Radiohead last played live in 2018, but drummer Philip Selway confirmed in an Instagram post on the band’s official account on Wednesday that they got back together “to rehearse, just for the hell of it” last year.
“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,” he continued.
“It also made us want to play some shows together, so we hope you can make it to one of the upcoming dates.”
The five-city European tour is all there is for now, he wrote, but added: “Who knows where this will all lead.”
The British band last performed together when they brought their Moon Shaped Pool tour to a close in the US in 2018, after having headlined Glastonbury Festival the previous year.
Since then, frontman Thom Yorke and guitarist Jonny Greenwood have recorded and performed as side project The Smile.
The Smile cancelled some concerts in July 2024 when Jonny, also an Oscar-nominated film composer, became seriously ill from an infection that needed emergency hospital treatment, some of it in intensive care.
Among the other band members, Ed O’Brien has been working on the follow-up to his debut solo album, released in 2020 under the moniker EOB, while bassist Colin Greenwood – Jonny’s brother – has been playing with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds of late.
Last year, Colin confirmed that Radiohead – who formed as schoolmates in 1985 and went on to release nine studio albums – had rehearsed together again that summer. “And it was really fun, had a really good time,” he said in conversation with the Hay Festival Querétaro.
However, late last year, Yorke told Australian radio station Triple J he was not aware of any plans for a Radiohead live return any time soon, regardless of the demand from fans.
“No offence to anyone and, er, thanks for caring,” he said. “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.”
In March this year, though, keen-eyed Radiohead fans noticed they registered a new limited liability partnership (LLP) labelled RHEUK25, with all five members listed as officers.
They then gave four tickets to a “Radiohead concert of your choice” to a Los Angeles fire relief auction run by Palisades High School, suggesting gigs were on the horizon.
Their 2003 album Hail to the Thief was this year remixed with William Shakespeare’s Hamlet for stage shows in Manchester and Stratford-upon-Avon.
And last week, their track Let Down – taken from their acclaimed 1997 album OK Computer – entered the US Billboard chart 28 years after its release, having gone viral on TikTok.
Registration for tickets for their new tour will open at Radiohead.com on Friday 5 September at 10:00 BST.