Radiohead Debut Two New Songs in Miami

Radiohead debut two new songs in Miami.

Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Radiohead kicked off their 2012 world tour in Miami last night with a setlist heavy on recent material and oldies that fit in comfortably with the band's turn toward chilly, poly-rhythmic electronica. Along with two new non-album songs first performed last year, "Staircase" and "The Daily Mail," the band debuted two even newer tunes at the show, "Identikit" and "Cut a Hole."

"Identikit," which you can hear in this clip, has the band continuing with the blend of cool electronic textures and delicate interlocking rhythms of last year's The King of Limbs. Thom Yorke's vocal is just a bit warmer, though, particularly as he repeats the line "I don't want to know."

"Cut a Hole," like "Nude" before it, is the band's version of a slow jam, with Yorke pushing his voice to its most feminine extremes as the band mixes hazy ambience with skeletal, slo-mo funk.

In addition to playing new songs, Radiohead also dusted off the instrumental OK Computer-era rarity "Meeting in the Aisle," which they had never performed in concert until last night.

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter