Radiohead shifts out of limbo with first tour in 7 years

No, that headline isn’t just a nice dream. After seven years away, Radiohead is actually touring again. The band confirmed the upcoming dates in a post on Instagram today, which included a note from drummer Philip Selway. “Last year, we got together to rehearse, just for the hell of it,” he wrote. “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. It also made us want to play some shows together, so we hope you can make it to one of the upcoming dates.”

The jigsaw is falling into place for European fans. The band will play multiple dates in Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen, and Berlin. Those are the only stops the band is offering for now, but in Selway’s characteristically cryptic words, “who knows where this will all lead.” The news is a welcome surprise, but Radiohead sleuths have known something was on the horizon for a while now. In March, the band registered a new limited liability partnership (LLP), a type of business entity the group has frequently used to release albums and promote its music outside of the standard label model. This one was called RHEUK25, which presumably stands for something along the lines of “Radiohead Europe (and) U.K. 2025.” Earlier this year, the band also offered four tickets to a “Radiohead concert of your choice” at a Los Angeles fire relief auction (per the BBC), which would have been a pretty crappy donation if there weren’t any gigs coming down the pike. Flyers for the shows also began appearing in the corresponding cities this week, with the Instagram post sealing the deal. 

While the band has gone on to launch several side projects in recent years including Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood’s The Smile, the full, five-person unit hasn’t released a studio album under the Radiohead name since 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. The band last performed together while touring for that album in 2018. No new music has been announced as of this writing, but as Selway said, “who knows where this will all lead.” For now, fans will have to fight for one of the upcoming dates. In an effort to make ticket sales “as fair as we can to everyone who wants to attend,” the band seems to be foregoing Ticketmaster and other “ticket touts” entirely. That’s probably a good call, considering the fiasco that transpired the last time a major English band announced a  reunion tour. Tickets will only be available for those who register on Radiohead.com and will be distributed “according to demand in a fair and geographically convenient way,” per a note from the band. Registration opens this Friday, September 5, at 10 BST (5 a.m. ET). Check out the full schedule below:

Radiohead 2025 tour: